


Null Life

by Non_Player_Character



Series: Half Life [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Friendship! And all that jazz, Multi, PG AU, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23680561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Non_Player_Character/pseuds/Non_Player_Character
Summary: Ouma Kokichi’s highschool debut goes off with every hitch possible.He gets forcibly dragged into the crossfires of a gang war, narrowly escapes attempted murder, and meets the love of his life before logging out of his consciousness—all in one day.It’s not as bad as it sounds.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Harukawa Maki, Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi, Ouma Kokichi & Saihara Shuichi & Harukawa Maki
Series: Half Life [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705210
Comments: 167
Kudos: 248





	1. Gang Wars, Gnome Girls, and General Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the stars collectively align to fuck over Kokichi's day. On the bright side of things—Shuichi picks up a new toy!

It happened on the way home from school.

Ouma Kokichi had been walking with his head down, hands clenched on his backpack straps, generally minding his own business and being a model citizen when he was abruptly pulled into an alleyway.

His first thought was  _ Holy shit, I'm getting mugged.  _ And then his head was slammed against a wall and all thoughts promptly escaped him.

When Kokichi came to—slowly and painfully—he was met with a cacaphony of yelling and screaming.

"Look, we got one of your guys as hostage now, so don't even—"

"The hell?! I've never seen this shrimp in my life!"

"Funny you would say that,  _ midget_ _._ He's wearin' your school's uniform, yeah?"

"Dumbass! That's not how it works!"

Okay. So. Kokichi was now apparently in an alleyway, full of aggressive, trigger-happy delinquents.  _ Okay. Totally not panicking. At all.  _ Except the arm, currently digging into his throat, was definitely not helping matters.

Kokichi blearily blinked his eyes, willing the black spots in his vision to briefly recede. His head was throbbing. Something wet trickled down his nape. His backpack dug uncomfortably into his back. The alleyway was dark and crowded, full of trash cans and people dressed in odd clothing. Some wore brightly colored bandannas on their faces, while others donned themselves with spikes and leather. Many posed in supposedly intimidating stances, when in actuality, they just looked a bit constipated. To be honest, they all looked rather ridiculous. Kokichi's eyes then immediately zeroed in on the arm of his kidnapper, which was holding him up against the brick wall.

His kidnapper was tall— _super fucking tall, _ his mind added unnecessarily. The guy's absurd height was probably due in part to his frankly bizarre hairdo. It was colored an obnoxious purple, spiking upwards like a pseudo-mohawk. It was the most ludicrous hairstyle Kokichi had ever seen. He felt offended just looking at it, in all its spikey-glory.

_ He looks like a cockatoo, _ his mind offered.

Cockatoo Guy was currently yelling at a girl in front him. And— _wow_ _._ If Cockatoo Guy was at one end of the spectrum, this girl was  _ definitely _ at the opposite end, miles away. She was shorter than Kokichi, which was a pretty commendable achievement. Kokichi was the shortest highschooler in his grade, as his growth spurt continued to stubbornly allude him. The only other high schooler he'd met that had been shorter than him had also been  _ weirdly  _ obsessed with cats, so Kokichi'd left him alone.

The girl's voice was rapidly increasing in both pitch and volume while she flailed her nail-infested baseball bat, unaware of the others around her leaning away for fear of getting mercilessly smacked. As she shrieked at Cockatoo-guy, her face became redder and redder, rapidly resembling her vivid hair.

_ Huh_ _,_ Kokichi thought, tilting his head and then wincing when it throbbed.  _ Her hair is the exact shade of a garden gnome's hat. _

And so, the girl was christened Gnome Girl.

There were other delinquent-looking students surrounding the vicinity, but the leaders were obviously Cockatoo Guy and Gnome Girl. Despite the comical height difference, they dominated the spotlight, bellowing at each other about—territory? Vandalism?  _ Gang wars? _

"Mind explainin' why we caught several of  _ your _ dickless baboons on our turf?" Cockatoo Guy snarled, gesturing wildly. His grip on Kokichi slowly weakened with each word. A few spikey, leather-covered guys stepped menacingly towards Gnome Girl.

"Only after you explain why  _ your  _ filthy rats scribbled all over our school walls!" Gnome Girl viciously pounded her baseball bat at a wall. Several bandanna-wearing delinquents shuffled forwards, jeering.

If things continued for any longer, a fight would definitely break out, with Kokichi  _ right in the middle. _At this thought, Kokichi's eyes desperately searched the alleyway, looking for a chance to escape. This was made increasingly difficult due to his head violently screaming at any slightest movement and noise while a goddamn symphony from hell was currently shrieking at each other.

His eyes snapped to his left. There, leaning innocently against a cardboard box, was a thick wooden stick. Just a foot away.

_ Bingo. _

"This all _your_ fault! If your yankees hadn't—"

Cockatoo Guy’s grip lessened, just a little, as he leaned forward.

_" My_ fault?! Who started this whole fuckin' war?!"

Kokichi glanced at the lone bandanna-wearing delinquent guarding the alleyway's entrance.

"And now you've gone and kidnapped some random nerd off the streets! My gang doesn't mess with worm-bodied losers! How much  _ stupider  _ can you get?!"

_ Wide stance. One weapon. Metal pole. Ow. Brain hurts. Opening on right side. _

"He's literally from your shit-hole school, bitch! He falls under  _ your  _ jurisdiction! You either back down or he gets gutted!"

Kokichi slowly shifted closer to the stick, hand inching along the wall.

"Is the hair gel getting to your brain? Why the  _ fuck _ would you try that? Banchou would sick her wolves on you!"

_ C'mon, just a little more... _

"I'm sick of playing by that bitch's rules! She doesn't even  _ do  _ anything!"

_ Gotcha. _

Kokichi's fingers curled around the wooden stick right as he wrenched himself out of Cockatoo Guy’s loose grip.

"O-Oi!" Cockatoo Guy made a grab for him. Kokichi retaliated by swinging the stick as hard as he could, almost wrenching his shoulder in the process, but ultimately hitting Cockatoo Guy’s face with a satisfying  _ smack!  _ Cockatoo Guy crashed into a few spikey delinquents, who flocked around him with distressed cries of _“_ _Boss!_ _”_.

Kokichi's momentum caused him to stumble and he narrowly dodged a metal pipe. He ducked under an arm, swung around a body, and then hurled his stick at the bandanna-delinquent's right side.

As predicted, the guy cursed and dove for his left, leaving a big, nice opening for Kokichi's escape. Not hesitating for a moment, he surged forward.

That was when Gnome Girl launched into action. With surprising speed, she darted forward and viciously swung her bat.

_ Goodbye, cruel world_ _,_ Kokichi mentally lamented as his impending death rapidly encroached into his space.  _ You sucked. I‘m leaving you a 2/10 stars review on Yelp. _

At that very moment, Lady Luck apparently took pity on Kokichi. He stepped on his loose shoelace, tripped, and, the bat, instead of obliterating his skull, only clipped the back of his head.

It still hurt.  _ A lot. _

The wound on his head, originally formed by his slam against the wall, was only further exacerbated by the bat's momentary contact. The wound flared with an overwhelming, white-hot intensity. His head felt like it had been cracked open with a hammer and then had its contents thoroughly mixed. And then boiled. And then run through a blender. And then dumped back into his head.  _ Oh god.  _ Nausea surged upwards like a tidal wave. His vision blacked out for a split second.

Kokichi came to just in time, lurching to the side to avoid another swing from Gnome Girl. She was seething at him and Kokichi had no clue as to what she was saying. His blood roared in his ears and the throbbing of his head deafened him.

_"_ _You bother buff tart!”_ Gnome-girl screeched, presumably. It occurred to Kokichi that he was probably not the best at reading lips.

As Gnome-girl readied for another murderous swing of her bat, Kokichi took that as his moment to bolt. He didn't bother looking behind him; he was well-aware that doing so would most likely result in tripping and, thus, instant death.

He ran as fast as he could while frantically trying to keep himself conscious. His vision was nearly obscured with black spots, and gravity— _the asshole_ —was weighing him down. The cloying, cold sensation of immense nausea  really wasn't helping. Kokichi stumbled over rocks, potholes, and his  _ one fucking shoelace.  _

He ran and ran until he reached a familiar destination: the Crossroads. The cluttered array of jutting signs pointing at wildly different directions was both a relieving and comforting sight. Kokichi tried slowing to a stop, but his legs, burning from his extreme workout, gave out underneath him. He collapsed onto the ground.  _ Oof! Hit my jaw. Fuck, head hurts. _

A pair of shiny shoes stepped into his view. Kokichi craned his head upwards with strenuous effort and looked directly into a pair of bright, searing eyes. It was like staring at the midday sun—a thoroughly unpleasant process, incredibly blinding, and utterly mesmerizing. The boy stared Kokichi down with palpable curiosity, not an ounce of empathy present in his gaze. His eyes were so, _so_ yellow. The boy's mouth was moving. He was saying something. What he was saying, Kokichi had no idea. His battered mind slowly came off the adrenaline-driven high and shuttered into shutdown mode.

The last thing Kokichi thought was:  _ Please don't let this guy be another psycho-delinquent after my head. Amen. _

And then he fainted.

•••

It happened on the way home from school.

Saihara Shuichi had been walking with his head bobbing to an unheard tune, fingers twitching, mind drifting off, and focus elsewhere. He'd had to serve yet  _ another _ detention for playing video games in class, which was  _ totally unfair _ because it wasn't Shuichi's fault if Danganronpa sang more sweetly than Sato-sensei's droning voice! 

_ Sato-sensei is a harpy_ _,_ Shuichi thought gleefully, and then procceeded to wrack his brain for more insults.  _ A crone. A wrinkly, boring harpy-crone!  _

He was very pleased with himself for that.

_ A wrinkly, boring harpy-crone who lives at school under her desk like a goblin.  _ A pause.  _ And also eats highschoolers and infants. _

At that moment, Shuichi reached a familiar destination: the Crossroads. The cluttered array of jutting signs pointing at wildly different directions was both a boring and typical sight. Just beyond the crossroads, however, was something much more exciting.

A boy was running towards him with a desperate, fear-induced fervor. His black, almost purple, hair was in a wild disarray, and there were bruises and scratches all over his face. 

_ Torn lower sleeve, scuffed sneakers, blood-splattered right sleeve, bruises at the neck— _

"Hello!" Shuichi said. The boy ignored him and collapsed at his feet instead. Well. That was sort of rude.

He looked down at the boy. They boy looked up at him. His pupils were dilated— _adrenaline-induced_ —and there was a lovely flush on his injured face— _previous erratic movement, abnormal amounts of blood at the head, body unused to such conditions. _

"You don't look so hot right now," Shuichi said. "Were you in a scuffle? Fighting? With weapons? With who?" Then he tilted his head. "That's a lot of blood!"  _ Single wound, at the back of head, concentrated area. _

The boy's eyes, glazed-over and unfocused _—_ _ dilated pupils, possible concussion— _ lazily tracked Shuichi's mouth. Blood dripped sluggishly down the nape of his neck. 

"Maybe you should try to stop bleeding," Shuichi offered, unhelpfully. "If you try really,  really hard and believe in yourself, you could do it! Like this: Stop bleeding! Stop bleeding! Sto—Ah, he passed out."

Shuichi now had an unconscious boy at his feet. 

_ Hmm, what should I do... _He pondered thoughtfully, the boy currently facedown on the concrete ground. His eyes trailed to the boy's hair, which was black, yet glinted with a delightful purple sheen under the sunlight. He briefly thought back to the boy's pretty, pretty purple eyes.  _Well ,_ he thought, _ purple _has _always been my favorite color._

Shuichi ended up dragging the boy home. 


	2. Saihara’s House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kokichi wakes up somewhere WEIRD. He makes the most out of it.

Kokichi woke up with a groan. His body was propped so that it was lying on its side, and there was something cold and wet behind his head. A soft pillow cushioned his throbbing head. He blindly reached out a hand and removed the wet—rag?—from behind. All his muscles felt ragged and sore. He felt like he’d just ran a marathon. And had utterly, miserably failed.

He blinked his eyes open, only to be met with a face inches away from his own.

_“Gah!”_ Kokichi yelped in surprise, before immediately wincing in intense pain. He dropped the rag onto the floor. The boy cocked his head curiously, impossibly bright eyes shadowed by his hat and lips curled into a static smile.

“Oh,” the boy said, voice hushed, “the guest is awake now!” He clapped his hands happily and Kokichi flinched at the sudden noise. “Whoops! Habit! Sorry.” 

“Have you—Have you just been watching me sleep _the whole time?!_ ” Kokichi asked incredulously, attempting to sit up. His muscles evidently did not appreciate that, and he ended up flopping back onto the couch. _Where the hell am I?_

“Google said to ‘monitor the patient,’ so I did! Oh, also! You’re at my home right now!”

_Huh, had he said that last part out loud...?_

“You didn’t say that part out loud!”

_Okay, this was getting seriously freaky._

“Don’t worry! I’m not a psychic! Just really, really good at guessing! Hey, did you know? You have bedhead!”

Kokichi had only just woken up, and yet he currently felt like passing out again. “Um,” he began, unsure of what exactly one was supposed to say when a stranger had essentially kidnapped one’s unconscious body. The corners of his vision were fuzzy. His head felt like it had a dumbbell strapped onto it. “Uh.”

The boy appeared to take pity on him. “Does the guest want some water?”

Kokichi was suddenly reminded of his parched throat. “Yeah,” he rasped out, “that’d be great.”

"Okay!" The boy cheered loudly, causing Kokichi’s head to throb, and then flounced off. 

Kokichi watched him leave with half-lidded eyes. _Man, what a weird guy._ His speech mannerisms had been all over the place, and Kokichi was fairly sure the boy hadn’t blinked a single time since he’d woken up. His tone had been one of constant child-like excitement, almost as if all his sentences ended with exclamation marks. The static smile had remained firmly rooted on the boy’s face, even while he was talking. There was something... _artificial_ about his demeanor.

The boy peeked his head back into the room. "Hey! I forgot—" His voice was now _incredibly_ loud. Kokichi clamped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes. "Oops! Sorry!" Now he was basically whispering. "Anyways, I forgot to ask—Hey, are you awake or are you just takin’ a spontaneous nap? Oh! That’s not what I was gonna ask. Um, what was it again...?"

_Oh my god._ "I’m awake," Kokichi said. "Uh. Maybe you were gonna ask me something about the water you were going to bring?" His throat was so, so dry.

The boy’s face lit up, his smile widening. "Oh yeah! That’s what it was! Does the guest want water with ice or fridge water or sink water or—"

“Fridge water!” Kokichi snapped out, hurriedly interrupting the boy. “Just, water from the fridge. No ice.” Then, remembering his manners, he softened his voice. “Please.”

“Gotcha!” The boy’s head disappeared into the other room, and loud crashes and banging ensued. Kokichi tried to muffle the sounds by burrowing his head into the pillow. 

He reassessed his current situation. He’d been... He’d been caught up in a gang war of sorts, between Cockatoo Guy and Gnome Girl. Cockatoo Guy had slammed his head against the wall, and Gnome Girl had only made it worse with her _almost_ -murder weapon. Judging by his still-throbbing head, extreme sensitivity to loud noises and sudden movement, and overall crappy condition, Kokichi was fairly sure he had a concussion. _Great. Just what I needed on top of an already terrible day._

And then, Kokichi had ran like all hell broke loose, eventually running himself to exhaustion. He remembered shiny shoes and piercing eyes before he had succumbed to unconsciousness. Next thing he knew, he had woken up on an unfamiliar couch with an equally unfamiliar boy.

With great effort, Kokichi slowly eased himself up. The dark-blue couch he was sitting on was soft and plush, made of high-quality velvet. The room he was in was evidently a living room of sorts, with its high ceiling, spacious size, and glossy wooden floor. The lights were currently off, and the window curtains drawn, making it difficult to discern any further details. He squinted his eyes at the ceiling. _Is that a...? Yup, that’s a chandelier. Where the actual fuck am I?_

The boy had said this was his home. To have such an obviously expensive living room, the boy had to be ostensibly rich, although his disheveled appearance— _wild, unbrushed hair, wrinkled clothes, ratty hat_ —made it a bit hard to believe. 

The crashing and banging from the other room suddenly stopped. The boy waltzed back into the room, a glass of water in his hand and a pot on his head. “Hello! Here’s your water!” After some hesitation, Kokichi accepted the glass. 

_Why is there a pot on his head._

“Why is there a pot on your head?” He asked, because some things were meant to be said out loud. 

The boy hummed thoughtfully. “Sometimes... the universe and the stars align just _so_ and whatever happens, happens! Y’know?” He smiled beautifully down at Kokichi.

Kokichi felt his soul ascending with every second that passed. “No, I _really_ don’t know. How does that even relate to what I just asked?”

The boy blinked and then proceeded to leave the room. Or, he _tried_ to leave the room, only to be stopped by Kokichi’s hand grasping his sleeve. 

“Wh— _Hey!”_ Kokichi spluttered. “You can’t just spout some mystic bullshit and then leave!” _Seriously, what is wrong with this guy?!_

The boy pouted, and it was _not_ adorable _in any shape or form._ _Definitely not._ _This concussion is messing with my brain._

Kokichi sighed deeply. “So. Why is there a pot on your head.”

The boy beamed. “It fell on me when I made the cabinets fall down!” _What._

Not wanting to go down _that_ rabbit hole, Kokichi decided to focus on something else. “Okay—Oh, fuck, I’m stupid. I probably should’ve asked this earlier. What’s your name?”

“I’m Saihara Shuichi!” The boy proclaimed, bouncing on his feet. “Let’s trade names!”

“Uh,” Kokichi said awkwardly. “My name’s Ouma Kokichi. Thanks for taking care of my injuries, Saihara-kun.” He tried going for a reassuring smile, but it came out more like a grimace.

Saihara seemed to like it anyway, judging by his blinding grin and buzzing body. He leaned in, face inches away from Kokichi’s, and Kokichi was instantly mesmerized by his smile, which was no longer static and unnatural. It now looked _real_. _He doesn’t look like a mannequin anymore_ , Kokichi realized. _He actually looks really—_

“Cute!” Saihara chirped suddenly.

“H-Huh?!” _Please don’t tell me he lied about not being a psychic._

Saihara leaned back, distancing himself. “Ouma-kun’s cute!” Then he paused, looking thoughtful. “When he’s not bloody or bruised, that is.”

_"What!"_ Kokichi yelped indignantly, offended. "I am _not_ cute! What is wrong—"

“Aw, Ouma-kun, no need to be modest!” Saihara said, waving a hand apathetically. “I think Ouma-kun’s cute, so therefore he’s cute! And that’s a fact!” He ended his tangent by striking a ridiculous peace sign.

Kokichi fumed and silently daydreamed about a sudden lightning bolt striking Saihara down. That way, there would no longer be any _infuriating, impossible_ boys bothering him with pretty eyes and prettier smiles and _why was he thinking about that._ Kokichi refocused his efforts on summoning lightning with the sole power of his irritation. When nothing happened in the next few seconds and Saihara simply stood there, seemingly content to bask in his annoyance, Kokichi relented, mentally admitting defeat. 

He sighed. “Are you just gonna wear that pot the whole time, or...?”

Saihara jolted. “Oh! Yeah!” He took off the pot, revealing a worn hat, and was about to chuck the pot across the room before he briefly remembered Kokichi’s existence and, subsequently, his _very sound-sensitive injury_ , and settled for dropping it onto the couch. He bounced up to Kokichi. “Hey, wanna go on a house tour?”

Kokichi pushed himself off the couch. He wobbled a bit on his feet and vertigo lunged for his head. He really didn't feel up for moving about. “I don’t think that’ll be a great idea, unless you have a wheelchair.”

Saihara tilted his head and hummed. “I can carry Ouma-kun?” He offered, making grabby hand motions.

Kokichi made a face, glancing at Saihara’s delicate-looking frame. The boy looked like he barely ever exercised, and likely never worked out on his own free will. If Saihara were to carry Kokichi, it would most _definitely_ end in a disaster. Also, Kokichi wasn’t very keen on being held by someone who was basically a stranger, however pretty they looked.

“No thanks,” Kokichi said, and when Saihara’s face immediately crumbled distressingly, Kokichi rushed to reassure him. _Oh god, why does he look so sad? He looks like a kicked puppy!_

“I, uh—You’ve already done so much for me. I _really_ don’t want to bother you even more.” _Why is he still so sad? Fuck, what do I do?!_

_"Please_ stop doing that _thing_ with your face," Kokichi pleaded. If possible, Saihara's face got even sadder.

Kokichi fervently wracked his brain for a way to _fix this mess._ "I can lean on you while we walk? So I don't fall?" He hadn't meant for it to come out as a question, but, here he was. His suggestion worked anyway, and Saihara no longer looked like he was one second away from bursting into tears.

"Oh!" Saihara beamed, his mood changing so quickly that it gave Kokichi whiplash. "What a wonderful idea!" And then he peered coyly at Kokichi from under his eyelashes. "Ouma-kun's _so_ smart!" 

Electing to ignore whatever weird feelings that had been awakened by _that,_ Kokichi smiled weakly. He was pretty sure he'd just been smoothly and effortlessly manipulated, and was feeling more than a little peeved. _This guy..._

The two of them silently stood there for several seconds because apparently Saihara had no idea what social cues were, leaving Kokichi to slowly die of embarrassment. He coughed, shuffling awkwardly. Saihara, he noticed, hadn't blinked in a while. Instead, Saihara's eyes were fixed on Kokichi's reddening face, studying him like a particularly intriguing zoo animal. He was still smiling widely.

"So!" Kokichi said, a bit too loudly. "How about that house tour?"

•••

The house tour was absolutely terrible. Various factors could be blamed for that, but most notable was the tour's absolutely _mortifying_ start. 

Kokichi had tentatively taken two steps before abruptly tripping. Fortunately, he fell right into Saihara’s waiting arms and thus successfully avoided face-planting onto the floor. Unfortunately, this meant that Kokichi was now practically being _cradled_ by Saihara, who was peering down at him with wide, intrigued eyes.

_He looks like a disheveled owl_ , supplied Kokichi’s mind.

“Is Ouma-kun okay?” Saihara asked, smiling, his hands irritatingly warm on Kokichi’s body. 

Kokichi averted his eyes, mumbling, “Y-Yeah, thanks.” He glanced at what had tripped him. “Oh! My backpack.” He attempted to straighten up, but found himself restrained by Saihara’s arms, which were still wrapped around him. 

He frowned at Saihara. “Um, you can let go of me, you know.” 

Saihara was silent for several increasingly worrying seconds before suddenly chirping, “Oh, okay!” And then he dropped Kokichi onto the floor. This time, Kokichi face-planted onto the wooden tiles. 

_“Saihara!”_

“Whoops,” Saihara said. He helped Kokichi up, one hand grasping Kokichi’s arm. 

“Well,” Kokichi grumbled, his face a bit sore, “this is off to a _great_ start.” Directly afterwards, he winced, feeling that had been a bit rude. 

“Really?” Saihara asked with wonderment.

“No.”

“Oh,” Saihara pouted. His face then swiftly changed back to casual cheeriness and he lightly clapped his hands together. “Ouma-kun’s already seen the living room! Unless he wants to see it in the light, rather than in the dark?” He tilted his head inquiringly at Kokichi, his hand still lightly holding Kokichi’s arm. 

Kokichi was suddenly reminded that the living room was indeed rather dim, with only the faint light emanating from the kitchen as a source of light. “I guess? Hopefully the lights aren’t too bright…”

The lights were switched on, a flood of blinding white that caused Kokichi to cringe. _“Argh!”_ Saihara squeaked and quickly lowered them to a dimmer setting. “Oh, thanks.”

The chandelier sparkled and a TV’s black screen twinkled under the light. Kokichi’s eyes wandered over to the large bookcase that dominated one of the room’s walls. How he hadn’t noticed it before, he didn’t know. It was _huge_ and overflowing with trinkets. He drifted towards the bookcase, and Saihara followed closely.

To his horror, the shelf was filled to the brim with _Danganronpa_ merchandise, ranging from DVD’s to cartoonish plushies. Black-and-white stuffed bears lounged at the top of the shelf while expensive figurines glinted proudly on the middle shelves. There was an overwhelming amount of merchandise of a particular purple-haired girl.

Kokichi’s previous annoyance resurfaced with a vengeance. _Danganronpa_ was like an annoying tick; it dug into his life with extreme discomfort, multiplied quickly, and refused to go away. It followed him everywhere he went and ruined his things like a fucking poltergeist. Almost everybody in Kokichi’s infernal high school was _obsessed_ with _Danganronpa_ , and it seemed like Saihara was too. An odd sense of disappointment washed over him like a cool, unnerving wave. He didn’t know why he had expected this intriguing boy to be different from the masses. He only knew that he felt immensely, irrationally betrayed. 

Some of Kokichi’s hatred must have shown on his face because Saihara was looking at him oddly. “Ouma-kun... doesn’t like _Danganronpa,_ does he?” He asked, uncharacteristically subdued. 

Kokichi looked down, gritting his teeth. He couldn’t bear looking at those innocent, piercing eyes. “Yeah. I’m sorry, I know it’s probably your favorite show, or something. I don’t really get why. I just can’t... stand it. It’s definitely not on my list top ten TV shows.” He joked weakly, attempting to soften the blow. “I don’t really like it, is all.”

That was a bit of an understatement. Kokichi detested _Danganronpa_ with a burning passion. It was a terrible, vile show that glorified senseless violence and praised painful deaths. While others raved about the show’s gory, over-the-top executions, Kokichi could only barely resist the urge to vomit. Those were _real people_ that were being brutally torn from limb to limb. They had _families_ that had probably loved them. But instead, they had chosen to throw their lives away in favor for fifteen measly minutes of fame. Kokichi simply couldn’t comprehend it. He would never understand why people would willingly ditch their loving families without a shred of remorse. It was unthinkable, leaving behind one’s loved ones even when they knew they were cherished and appreciated. Didn’t _Danganronpa_ participants know how priceless families were?

Saihara was still staring at him.

_Stop looking at me._

Against his will, Kokichi’s mind recalled the times when his peers discovered his dislike for _Danganronpa_ and swiftly turned on him. _Danganronpa_ fans, Kokichi summarised, were savage and utterly apathetic towards any outliers. Their rabid devotion to the shitty show was _sickening_.

After all, it was one of the main reasons he was his high school’s social outcast.

It occurred to Kokichi that his arm still had Saihara’s hand wrapped around it. He wrenched himself out of his grip. “Look, this—this was all just a mistake, okay? I’m pretty sure I’ve overstayed my welcome. So…”

That seemed to snap Saihara out of his stupor. “Ah, no!” Saihara yelped. “Ouma-kun’s fine! He can stay!” He made several frantic gestures, waving his hands in the air. 

Kokichi stubbornly squashed down any dredges of hope that rose up. “You don’t have to _lie_ , Saihara. I _hate_ liars. And I’ve just insulted your precious show. There’s no way you still want me around—“

“No! Ouma-kun can stay!”

“ _Saihara—_ “

“Ouma-kun! Ouma-kun, listen! _Danganronpa_ ’s important, yes, but!” And here, Saihara floundered for words. Apparently the concept of somebody even slightly disliking _Danganronpa_ was completely foreign to him. “It’s uber important, but Ouma-kun’s also important! _Super_ important! Just ‘cos he hates _Danganronpa_ doesn’t mean I hate him too!” 

Kokichi was speechless. Now it was his turn to stare wordlessly at Saihara.

Saihara seemed to take his silence negatively. “Please don’t leave,” he begged, amber eyes wide and pleading.

Finally, a few words tripped off of Kokichi’s tongue. “Why...” he began. “Why am I so important to you? I’m literally just a stranger you picked off the road.”

Saihara looked down at his feet. “Ouma-kun’s nice to me,” he mumbled bashfully. “He’s really nice! He pays attention to me… smiles at me... treats me like a person... and has never hit me.” At this, Kokichi’s heart dropped like a sack of bricks. He opened his mouth to speak, but Saihara wasn’t done yet. “I like being around him. He’s calming and nice and funny. Plus, his hair is pretty!”

“Saihara...”

“So, Ouma-kun will stay?” Saihara asked, teeth working on his bottom lip and eyes fixed on Kokichi’s face. “Please?”

“I...” Kokichi sighed. Pity clawed at his throat. “If you really don’t mind me hating _Danganronpa_ , I’ll stay.” Besides, it was... _refreshing_ to have someone who actually wanted you around. 

It was like watching the sun rise. Saihara’s previously gloomy expression dissolved, replaced by a huge smile that radiated sheer happiness. With a loud cheer, he hugged Kokichi tightly and then jumped back. His body was actually vibrating with joy. It struck Kokichi that maybe, just _maybe,_ Saihara hadn’t been manipulating him earlier. It was quite possible that was simply how the boy experienced emotions—rapid, sudden, and fleeting.

Kokichi, left dazed by the impromptu hug, wobbled in place. He blinked his eyes, face flushed. _What just happened._ Realizing how embarrassingly red his face was, Kokichi furiously willed it back to its normal color. _Argh—! I really don’t want to look like a tomato in front of Saihara._

Saihara took this as the perfect moment to bring a revelation to light. “Ah, does Ouma-kun realize that he’s been calling me ‘Saihara’ with no honorific?”

Kokichi’s face was once again tomato-red. 

•••

Saihara led Kokichi out of the living room and into what was, presumably, the kitchen. 

“This is my kitchen!” Saihara confirmed. “It has black-and-white checkered floor tiles! Cool, huh?”

Kokichi squinted warily at the absolute mess that was Saihara’s kitchen. The ceiling lights were blinding. Two of the cabinets lay on the floor, with their contents strewn across the entire room. The rest of the cabinets had their doors flung wide open. There was a Monokuma plushie in a pot on the stove. Spoons, bowls, pans, and broken glass littered the tiles. The sink was still on, water steadily gushing out.

“Yeah,” Kokichi said, slowly. _“Cool.”_ He sped to the sink and quickly turned the knob. The thought of being wasteful made him shudder in revulsion. No matter how much money Saihara had, it was probably hell on his bills. 

Saihara’s unblinking eyes tracked his movements. He hummed an unknown tune. “Oh, I forgot about that! Thanks, Ouma-kun! I’m, eh, not the best at remembering things.”

Despite how tired he felt, Kokichi couldn’t resist smiling at this endearingly frustrating boy. _He’d forgotten a question in a matter of seconds,_ Kokichi recalled. _He’s so silly that I can’t tell if he’s acting this way on purpose._ He then immediately shot forward to stop Saihara from stepping right onto a pile of broken glass. 

Kokichi huffed and guided him out of the kitchen. “Saihara, I know it’s your kitchen, but seriously! You should watch your step.”

Saihara didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he opted to stand in the middle of the hallway they were currently in and dramatically announced, “This is my hallway!”

Kokichi snorted, bemused. He glanced around. “It’s so... tastefully decorated.” This was partially true, as the hallway was a massive improvement from the whirlwind of a kitchen and the cluttered living room. In comparison, the hallway was a welcome reprieve. The only thing that irked Kokichi, though, were the numerous picture frames and posters of Danganronpa characters. There were a few stray marker doodles dotting the walls. It struck him a little odd that he so far hadn’t seen a single picture—or hell, a single _sign_ —that indicated the presence of Saihara’s parents. That worried Kokichi greatly. _Is Saihara living here on his own...?_

Saihara, apparently getting impatient of Kokichi just standing there, suddenly grasped one of his hands and began running down the hallway.

“S- _Saihara?!”_ Kokichi stuttered out, bewildered. He nearly tripped, trying to keep up with the other boy’s _unfairly_ long legs. 

“C’mon, Ouma-kun!” Saihara cheered, practically skipping. “I want you to see my room!”

“Hey! Slow down a little!” _Holy shit, why is his hallway so long?_

“Let’s go let’s go let’s go!”

_There’s no reason to have such a long fucking hallway. Is this where he gets his daily exercise?_

“Aaaaand—We’re here!”

_My fucking god, there’s actually an end to this tunnel. Hallelujah._ Kokichi stumbled a bit, then slumped against Saihara. His head was pounding. Who knew the up-and-down motions of running greatly resembled the repeated slams of a sledgehammer to his head? 

Saihara peered down at the purple mass attached to his arm. “Sorry, Ouma-kun! I prolly should have warned you before running, huh?” 

Kokichi could only tiredly nod his head into Saihara’s shoulder in response. 

Mercifully, Saihara let him rest for approximately five seconds. By the third passing second, he began fidgeting again. By the fourth second, he started vibrating. By the fifth second, he slammed the door open and dragged Kokichi inside. 

“This,” Saihara announced with a grand, sweeping gesture, Kokichi still attached to his arm like a limpet, “is my room!”

“Yay,” Kokichi mumbled. _My head is killing me._

“I know right?”

“I’m going to sit on your bed now,” Kokichi said, then floated his way onto a soft, fluffy bed. He flopped his head onto a plush pillow. The bed was crowded with— _ugh_ —more Monokuma bears and plushies of that one purple-haired girl. As usual, _Danganronpa_ was an infestation, constantly ruining his mood. There were way more blankets and pillows on the bed than necessary. It was as if Saihara had emptied his entire linen closet onto his bed.

_Although,_ Kokichi thought, watching Saihara flit about his room like a sugar-high hummingbird, _I’m pretty sure that’s something he would definitely do._

“Ouma-kun!” Saihara chirped, bouncing up to him. “Want another pillow?” His arms were carrying even more fucking pillows— _seriously where is he stashing these?!_

Kokichi sat up and winced when his blood rushed from his head. “Nah, I’m good. Why do you have so many pillows, anyways? Are you, like, raiding Target of their pillows daily?”

Saihara hummed. “Something like that!”

“Wait, really? I was joking—“

A box was shoved in front of Kokichi’s face. “Look! Check out the shiny stuff I collected!”

Kokichi blinked down at the box. It was full of glittery clips, chipped crystals, shiny coins, and colored rocks. Most of the rocks were cheerful shades of purple.

“Are you a magpie?” Kokichi asked, amused. He picked up a twinkling purple rock, holding it up to his eyes and turning it this way and that. It glinted with a charming metallic shimmer. 

Saihara was either completely tuning Kokichi out or was simply ignoring him. Seemingly deciding that the box had exhausted Kokichi’s attention, Saihara yanked it from his lap and replaced it with a bottle full of seashells. 

“Look!” Saihara crowed, and then promptly got distracted by the fluttering curtains of his window. 

A smile danced on Kokichi’s lips as he turned away from watching Saihara. He focused on the bottle in his lap, which was full of colorful shell fragments. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to say, so he settled for a “They’re pretty.” He tried to hand Saihara back the bottle, but the boy was too fixated on staring at whatever was beyond his window. 

First, Kokichi lightly shook the bottle, the shells jingling. Saihara remained unmoving. Next, he tried tapping the bottle against Saihara’s cheek. The boy didn’t seem to notice. Finally, Kokichi sighed and fully smushed the bottle onto Saihara’s face. 

“Saihara,” Kokichi asked, "are you having a stroke or something?”

The boy in question finally jolted out of whatever dissociative state he had been. “Huh? What’s wrong, Ouma-kun? Oh! My seashells!” He took the bottle and wandered off to his desk. 

“What were you so distracted with? I swear, a bomb could’ve gone off next to you, and you wouldn’t have noticed.”

Saihara giggled. “Ehh? Really? I was just watching a moth!” He waved his hands around, apparently trying to reenact the supposed insect. To be honest, it looked more like his hands were malfunctioning, but Kokichi wasn’t going to tell him _that_. He’d probably look all sad again. Or worse, actually start crying. _But seriously? A moth. Of all the things possible, a moth made him zone out for a full minute._ Kokichi realized that he would most likely never fully comprehend the enigma that was Shuichi Saihara.

A thought lingered on the forefront of his mind. “Hey Saihara,” Kokichi began, “how come your house doesn’t have any pictures of your pare—Oh fucking— _Shit!_ ”

“Ouma-kun?!”

“ _Please_ tell me the time on your alarm clock is five hours early.” Kokichi bemoaned. “ _Please._ ” 

Saihara cocked his head to the side, brows furrowed. “But I thought Ouma-kun said he hates liars?”

_No fucking way._ “It can’t possibly be 11:00 _already!”_ _God, an hour after curfew. They’ve probably already freaked out and called the police._

“I’m sorry, Ouma-kun,” Saihara said slowly, a bit confused. “You were passed out for a really, really long time. You wouldn’t wake up no matter how many buckets of ice-water I drenched you with.”

Kokichi jumped off the bed, steadfastly ignoring the surge of pain along with whatever new, bewildering thing Saihara had just said. “I have to get back to the house! My guardians are probably going mental right now!”

“Aww, so soon? Ouma-kun hasn’t even seen the second floor!” 

Kokichi glanced up at Saihara. The boy looked genuinely downhearted, his sorrowful eyes and frowning mouth causing Kokichi’s heart to twinge in response. “It’s alright, Saihara.” Kokichi said gently. “I promise I’ll visit you again. Here, why don’t you add your phone number into my—shit, where’s my phone? Oh, it’s in my backpack. Fuck! Where’s my backpack?” 

“Ouma-kun’s stuff is by the living room couch!”

“That means we’ll have to run down your ridiculously long hallway again. Saihara, just wanted to say, your hallway’s length is actually absurd.”

“I know! Isn’t it great?” 

The two began sprinting down the hallway.

“Who gave you the right to have such an annoyingly long hallway? Jeez...”

“Sometimes I can slide across the whole length if I’m wearing super duper fluffy socks!”

“God, they’re going to _kill_ me. I’ve never been this late before...”

“But I did that too many times and now all my fluffy socks have holes in them. Eheheh!”

“Wonder if this’ll go on my record... Probably. They just _love_ calling me out for every little fucking mistake...”

“I think I’m gonna wax my hallway so it’s even more slippery! I could totally go _zoom!_ ”

“Okay, got my backpack, where’s my phone...? Here it is!”

“Doesn’t that sound amazing, Ouma-kun?” Saihara asked, body buzzing and angled towards the other boy. 

Kokichi looked up, distracted by the sudden bright screen of his phone. “Huh? Yeah, sure. Anyways, please put your number in.”

“Okie dokie!” He took Kokichi’s phone and began typing furiously something with frightening intensity. Kokichi was too busy rifling through his backpack to properly fear for his phone’s safety. _All my stuff is in here. Good. Thank god none of those delinquents stole my stuff..._ Saihara handed him his phone back. 

“Thanks,” Kokichi said, glancing at his screen, noticing that a new contact had been added to his text messages. It was named “☆*:.｡. SAIHARA!!!٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و.｡.:*☆”. Kokichi quietly reminded himself to rename it later on.

“Ouma-kun’ll come back, right?” Saihara inquired, tilting his head and widening his shining eyes. He blinked imploring at Kokichi. _What’s he doing? Why’s he suddenly look even cuter? Is that even possible?_

“What’s wrong with your face,” Kokichi blurted out. _Is he... He’s making puppy-dog eyes at me!_

“Ouma- _kun!”_ Saihara whined.

“Okay, okay! Of course I’ll visit you again.” A thought struck him. “We can meet up everyday after school at the Crossroads, alright? Just, ah, not on Thursdays.”

Saihara clapped his hands and did a little dance. “Yes! Super! Amazing!” Then he abruptly stopped. “But what happens on Thursdays?” 

Kokichi speed-walked to the huge front door. “I have to work on Thursdays.” He opened the door and stepped out, tilting his head at Saihara. “See you, Saihara! Oh, thanks again for taking care of me!”

Saihara waved him goodbye enthusiastically. “Bye-byeee, Ouma-kun! I’ll take care of you anytiiime!”

“Hopefully you don’t have to ever do that again, though!”

The last thing Kokichi saw as the door closed was Saihara, bouncing up and down, still waving and sporting a big, blinding grin on his face. Kokichi didn’t notice his own answering smile until much later, while he was walking home. 

His cheeks were sore from smiling so much.


	3. Just Another Regular School Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of Gnome Girl! For, like, a second.

As predicted, the second Kokichi arrived at his house, his foster parents descended upon him like vultures to roadkill. They squawked and squabbled about how _worried_ they were, and _young man, we set that curfew for a reason—!_ Kokichi didn’t really pay attention, as he was more focused on escaping the clutches of the vultures and sprinting to the safety of his room. Unfortunately, escape meant biding his time until his guardians inevitably turned on each other, now screeching insults and accusations while additionally lobbing vases at each others’ heads. This was a common occurrence.

Kokichi deftly dodged a flying ceramic vase which shattered upon impact on the wall behind his head. It had probably been expensive as hell. Limited edition. Luxury brand. Maybe he should have cared a little more, and maybe he should have been a bit disturbed at how his guardians seemed to possess an infinite supply of vases, but _god,_ he was tired, still concussed, and he had _a shit ton of homework to do. And, anyway, they’d just buy another mountain of vases. They definitely have the money and the gross ceramics kink to do so, the weirdos._

Sneaking up the stairs, Kokichi finally reached his bedroom. He darted into his room, quietly closing and locking the door with the lock he had specifically installed to barricade himself from his guardians. The screeching downstairs was blessedly muffled by his door. The bedside alarm clock cheerily blinked _11:14_ _PM._

His bedroom was a stark contrast to Saihara’s. Where Saihara’s room was a cluttered mess, jam-packed with trinkets and plushies, Kokichi’s room was a neat catalogue of a clean, minimalistic teenager’s room. The minimalism wasn’t an intentional choice; Kokichi just didn’t know how and what one was supposed to decorate a bedroom with. Any attempts to liven up his living space with decorations only further proved his deficiency in interior design. Besides, they just made his room look cluttered and thus activate his urge to deep-cleanse his room. Again.

Kokichi dumped his backpack onto the floor and slumped into his chair, letting out a sigh of relief. The stack of homework waiting to be completed had felt like lead in his backpack. His eyes slowly closed, his vision blurring.

His phone pinged, causing Kokichi to jolt and slam his knee on the underside of his desk. He briefly considered ignoring the notification. His choice was thwarted when the pinging, which was steadily getting on his nerves, continued with an intensity.

_What the hell,_ he thought a bit mutinously, _who’s texting me at this hour...? This better not be a spam text..._

It wasn’t. It was Saihara.

**☆*:.｡. SAIHARA!!!٩(˃̶͈̀௰˂̶͈́)و.｡.:*☆**

oumakun!!! didja get home safe?? 

ARE U DEAD!!!!!!!!

that would totally suck!! :((

heres some advice!

DONT BE DEAD!!!!

look! a cool rock i found!!

_JPEG — > sent _

Kokichi quietly huffed a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness that was Saihara. His name was still an eyesore, though, so Kokichi changed it before sending a response.

**Kokichi**

yeah, i got home fine. didn’t get kidnapped and nearly killed again, so that’s a win.

nice rock.

**Saihara☆**

OUMAKUNS ALIVE!!!!!!!

So he kept the star in his name, sue him. It fit Saihara’s... Saihara-ness pretty well.

**Saihara☆**

since oumakun likes this rock so much, ill keep it safe for him!!

**Kokichi**

thanks i think?

**Saihara☆**

rock castle

**Kokichi**

what?

**Saihara☆**

im gonna make a rock castle out of rocks n glue!!

**Kokichi**

don’t you have any homework to do?

i know i still have a pile left. ugh

**Saihara☆**

oh............

homework..............

**Kokichi**

?

what’s with that response?

**Saihara☆**

ehh,

heheh ,,,

i just forgot what homework was

  
  


**Kokichi**

.............how

  
  


**Saihara☆**

cos i never do it!!!

the teacher just gives me a tonna paper n i stash em under my bed!

**Kokichi**

SAIHARA

**Saihara☆**

im starting a collection!!

**Kokichi**

oh my god

how are you not expelled yet?

**Saihara☆**

well!

**Kokichi**

nevermind, don’t answer that.

we’ll discuss your... habits later.

unlike you, i still have homework to do.

**Saihara☆**

oumakuns coming over tomorrow right?

**Kokichi**

yep, i’ll be seeing you tomorrow.

**Saihara☆**

YAY

BYE BYE!!!!!!! (^o^)/

Kokichi closed his phone with an amused smile. _Huh._ He was smiling again. This was unnatural enough that he had to stop and wonder about it for a moment. He'd never been the type to dish out beaming grins like free handouts—entirely unlike Saihara. In fact, he'd barely ever smiled, less so ever since he'd moved to this strange, new city. The adults looming over him in his life regarded him as a serious child. Studious. Introverted.

The people his age simply called him a freak. 

Looking at the situation now, it seemed like Saihara possessed the strange ability to simultaneously perplex and entertain Kokichi. Already, Kokichi had smiled more today than he had in the past few months, which, in hindsight, was pretty... weird.

_Anyways. Now’s not the time to freak out over that._ Kokichi looked despairingly at the stack of homework on his desk. _I’m going to fucking hate myself in the morning._

The bedside alarm clock cheerily blinked _11:19 PM._

•••

Shuichi woke up in a _great_ mood, because _why?_ He finally had a friend! This was _almost_ the greatest thing in the universe, second only to Kyoko Kirigiri-senpai’s existence. Not even face planting onto the floor and nearly destroying the rock castle he’d made last night could ruin his mood. He was just _that_ psyched. 

_Ouma-kun’s awesome,_ thought Shuichi as he stumbled into the kitchen and tripped over a pan. _Totally the best!_ He mooned as he sidestepped a pile of broken glass. Maybe he should clean that up... nah, it looked rather tasteful on the kitchen floor, right? _I’ve barely known him for a day and he’s already my favorite person!_

Shuichi snagged a cereal bar and then wandered out of the kitchen. He stood in the living room for a while, pondering about what to do next. A thought occurred to him. _Oh yeah! I gotta brush my teeth and my hair and also change outta my pajamas! Whoops!_

After doing all that, Shuichi walked out the door with his bag hanging from his shoulder and a skip in his step. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and he was just _so happy!_ He never bothered checking the time to see whether or not he was either late or _terribly_ late. To Shuichi, time was relatively low on his list of priorities. _In fact,_ he thought, _who even needs time? Just go **wherever** depending on your mood! Everything should turn out just fine! _

As it turned out, Shuichi had, for once, arrived at school on time. The crowds of chattering students flooding the high school entrance was a foreign sight to him, as he was more accustomed to the nearly empty courtyards when he arrived at school at his usual time: _terribly_ late. Shuichi detoured to the side of the building, hopping onto a generator and then scaling the wall. He arrived at his classroom window, which was, as predicted, open, and then hopped inside. His classmates, all too used to Shuichi’s odd choice of entering, hardly even noticed his arrival. Only a harried-looking Sato-sensei did a double-take.

“Saihara-kun,” she mumbled, not quite believing her eyes. She fumbled with her glasses, clearly shaken. “You’re... on time... for once...?” Accompanying her unnerved gaze was the staring of his pig-tailed classmate, who looked at him curiously. 

Shuichi, out of habit, politely ignored Sato-sensei’s existence and began fake-sleeping at his desk. When he heard her give her customary huff, indicating that she had, once again, given up, he straightened up and pulled out his phone. 

**Shuichi**

oumakun!!!! good morning!!!

**★OUMAKUN★**

oh hey saihara

good morning!

**Shuichi**

!!!!

GOOD MORNING!!

_Ouma-kun seems to be in a great mood!_ Saihara thought as a smile curled his lips. He gazed at the exclamation point, the very first one he’d ever received from Ouma.

**★OUMAKUN★**

ah another good morning?

**Shuichi**

oumakun deserves it!!!!

**★OUMAKUN★**

thanks i think?

oh yeah

don't you go to that fancy private school?

**Shuichi**

yep!!!

the one in the citys west wing!!

howd oumakun deduce that??

**★OUMAKUN★**

didn’t really “deduce” it but

although your uniform’s pretty rumpled, it’s still rlly distinctive.

no other school in the district uses such high-quality material.

and stuff...

Shuichi could hear Sato-sensei puttering about at the front of the classroom, shuffling papers and muttering to herself.

**Shuichi**

oumakuns SO SMART!!!

the smartest!!

the best!

**★OUMAKUN★**

um

it wasn’t that hard...

but thanks :)

**Shuichi**

hey hey

oumakun goes to that public school in the citys east wing!!?

right?

  
  


“Good morning, class!” Sato-sensei droned tiredly. She then sighed and muttered, “It’s actually a _shit_ morning, but _who cares..._ nobody listens to a _teacher..._ ”

**★OUMAKUN★**

yeah actually

how’d you figure that out?

my school’s uniform is pretty common.

**Shuichi**

oumakuns school insignia is printed on his uniforms buttons!

**★OUMAKUN★**

what really?

huh

you’re right.

i never noticed that.

As usual, Sato-sensei’s voice could wake the dead. “After I finish taking attendance, we’ll be starting a new project in English relating to our current book...”

**★OUMAKUN★**

oh

this is pretty weird.

**Shuichi**

what????

**★OUMAKUN★**

my teacher’s unusually late today...

**Shuichi**

GOOD!!

**★OUMAKUN★**

nvm he’s here.

**Shuichi**

OH NO

make him go away!!!

**★OUMAKUN★**

haha sorry

no can do.

**Shuichi**

NNNOOO OUMAKUN

i wanna keep talking to u!!!

**★OUMAKUN★**

pfft how dramatic

we’ll get the chance to talk later, okay?

class finally started.

**Shuichi**

nnnnnnndkddkknnknnjjjjjjj

**★OUMAKUN★**

...are you okay?

**Shuichi**

not at all!

**★OUMAKUN★**

i’m a bit worried now.

oh, gotta go.

bye saihara

**Shuichi**

aw bye bye!!!

(T ^ T)

Shuichi pouted and exited out of his phone. _Too bad Ouma-kun’s too much of a rule-abiding student to text during class... I’m suuuper bored right now, and I just wanna talk to Ouma-kun..._

“You’ll be conducting research on a topic relating to the Renaissance era for this project. Now, now, class, please stop your groaning! It’s not _that_ bad... is it?”

_I wonder what Ouma-kun’s doin’ right now. Is he paying attention to the teacher or staring out the window like me?_

“ _I_ thought it was a pretty good idea... Ahem! I’ve listed some topics you can research on the board. And, ah, what am I forgetting...”

In a fit of sheer boredom and longing, Shuichi slumped his head into his arms, causing his hat to nearly fall off. His gaze was still fixed to the wonderfully bright blue sky beyond the open window. White fluffy clouds danced across the blue expanse, pleasantly framing the shiny sun. Tree leaves rustled gently in the cool autumn breeze. _Who knows? Ouma-kun ‘n I could be looking at the same sky right now. That’d be pretty funky!_

“Oh jeez, I _knew_ I shouldn’t have skipped my third morning coffee... Uh, ahaha, class, bear with me here...”

_Shut uuuup, Sato-sensei..._ Shuichi’s eyes fluttered close.

“It’s right on the tip of my tongue! What _was_ it?”

His breathing slowly evened out. Sato-sensei’s voice became fainter and fainter, a faint echo in the background.

“Oh, I got it! Class, for this project, you’ll be _partnering up!_ ”

Shuichi fell asleep to the cheers of his classmates.

•••

Kokichi closed his phone and focused his attention to his teacher. Despite his best efforts, his meager hours of sleep and minor concussion were weighing on him, causing his attention to drift and his eyes to feel unnaturally heavy. It didn’t help that his grumpy teacher was as devastatingly boring as usual.

_I really hope my texting isn’t too stilted or awkward... I haven’t had much practice for this kind of stuff. Saihara doesn’t seem to mind, anyways._

His eyes fixed onto the irritatingly bright blue sky just beyond the closed window. Wispy greyish clouds drifted aimlessly across the blue expanse, doing their absolute worst at blocking out the shitty sun. Tree leaves rustled loudly in the crisp autumn breeze. _Who knows? Saihara and I could be looking at the same sky right now. That’d be pretty weird..._

Kokichi then immediately reprimanded himself for thinking such a sickeningly corny thought. _Right. Lesson. Class. I’m in class right now and should most definitely be paying attention._

Right on cue, his teacher called on him. “You there!” And here, he faltered, which was uncharacteristic for his usually militant behavior. “O... Oma-kun! Tell me, what are the three parts of the Aristotelian Triangle?”

"My name's actually Ouma with a 'u'," Kokichi said.

"Yes, Oma. That's what I said. Now quit stalling and answer my question!"

Kokichi didn't bother correcting his name for the second time. Instead, he mumbled some variation of the correct answer and was mercifully spared. Disappointed that he couldn’t lord his superior knowledge over Kokichi, the teacher snapped his attention to another unfortunate student. “Yamamoto-kun, answer me this! What is the definition of an appeal to ethos?”

While the teacher loomed over a panicking student, Kokichi slumped down into his seat. His teacher was a _beast._ _God, I hate public speaking. It’s literally set up for an embarrassing accident to happen._

The period crawled on, oozing slowly like slime. Kokichi had to stop himself from falling asleep three separate times. 

•••

It was lunchtime, and Kokichi was currently heading towards his usual spot: the library. It was secluded enough, devoid of other obnoxious students, and filled with dusty worn books. Thankfully, the library had no qualms against eating in there, so it was basically the perfect lunch spot. Students tended to avoid the library because of some silly rumor about it being haunted or something equally stupid. _It’s a_ **_school library_** _. What’s there to haunt? Old, soda-stained books? Ancient shelves? Dust bunnies?_

So, in short, the library was Kokichi’s personal heaven.

He was looking forward to another quiet, uneventful lunch period wherein he would finish his homemade bento, maybe text Saihara some more, and head back to class. 

However, his plan was thwarted when, upon entering the library, he ended up tripping over a large, warm bundle on the ground. Looking down revealed that the bundle was, in actuality, a human being—specifically, a familiar-looking pigtailed girl. Her eyelashes were coated in impressive amounts of mascara and her lips were painted black, making her greatly resemble a sleep-deprived occultist who also simultaneously doubled as a goth raccoon. Goth Girl stared up at Kokichi impassively. Cards were scattered on the ground in front of her.

“Shit, sorry about that!” Kokichi stammered and then flushed red when the librarian shushed him. Goth Girl didn’t bother replying as he crouched down to help her gather up her cards. Upon closer inspection, he realized that they were tarot cards, illustrated with intricate embellishments and detailed pictures. “I’m really sorry about messing up your, uh, fortune telling... session?” _Someone please duct-tape my mouth shut._

“It’s alright,” Goth Girl said in a monotone voice, calmly accepting the stack of now-organized cards from Kokichi. “The stars decreed this would happen.”

_What?_

“What?” Kokichi asked, because seriously, _what_. He hesitantly took a step backwards. _If this raccoon-looking girl turns out to be another looney..._

Goth Girl spread her cards out in a smooth, practiced movement. A pale finger, its nail painted an inky black, tapped a card in the middle. “I act as a prophet for the ones above—their living mouthpiece, if you may.” 

Kokichi didn’t know how to reply to that.

She looked up at him and, in her droning voice, said, "The stars have taken deliberate interest in you. They talk of many branches in your life, diverging and converging at single, specified points of alignment." And then she went back to staring at her cards, still crouched down in the middle of the library’s entrance.

_Well. That’s not weird at all._

Although it was probably a bad idea— _An absolutely stupid idea,_ his mind supplied unnecessarily. _What the actual hell do you think you're doing?_ —Kokichi wanted to know more. After all, Goth Girl had piqued his interest and stoked his curiosity, so he couldn’t just _leave_ without clarification about all that mumbo-jumbo regarding the stars and branches and their interest in _him,_ of all people. "What exactly do the stars... say...? About me?"

The girl stared at him with her dull, dead eyes. Her facial expression hadn’t changed once during their conversation. She was like a stone-faced statue. _Wow, she wears_ **_a lot_ ** _of makeup._ Kokichi shook himself out of his mini lapse of attention when the girl began talking again. 

"Fated One, you’ve entered a period of divergence. In this time-capped duration, you’ll be met with characters of paradoxical natures, familiarities mixed with the unknown. No obvious choice will cement your fate, but rather a final culmination will act as the ultimate decisive factor. Your future is shrouded and your future is _now_." After spewing a boatload of divine nonsense, Goth Girl once again refocused her attention to her cards. Apparently, their conversation had reached its conclusion.

Kokichi felt even more hopelessly lost than before. _Maybe I shouldn’t have asked._

He spent the rest of the lunch period sitting quietly at a library table, trying to ignore the presence of Goth Girl, who remained crouched at the entrance. She was a blurry mound of black, located just outside his peripheral vision. 

Saihara hadn’t sent a single text.

•••

Kokichi entered his classroom, only to stop dead in his tracks. Goth Girl had somehow teleported from the library and was now calmly sitting at a desk next to the classroom bulletin. _No wonder she looks so familiar,_ Kokichi mentally berated himself, _she’s my fucking classmate! How did I not know that?_

He warily edged past her desk with more caution than necessary and made his way to his seat, which was positioned diagonal to hers. Goth Girl continued staring straight ahead, dead to the world. _Please don’t notice me please don’t notice me plea—_

“It appears we meet once more, Fated One,” Goth Girl intoned without even turning his head to face Kokichi. It sort of looked like she was a lunatic talking to the air, but Kokichi knew better. Not _only_ was she a lunatic, but she had evidently dubbed him with the absolutely absurd nickname of “Fated One.” He didn’t know which one was worse.

“Um, yeah. Who knew we were classmates?” Kokichi laughed nervously. He _really_ hoped his stand-offish, awkward personality would drive her off, just as it had did for everybody else. That is, excluding Saihara, but that guy was an anomaly. And also weird as hell.

“The stars knew, of course,” replied Goth Girl. “They see all.” 

“Oh yeah? Do they see how fucking nuts you look while you talk to thin air like an escaped mental asylum patient?” was what Kokichi _did_ **_not_** say.

Instead, he offered her a pinched “That’s nice” and pretended to write in his notebook, thus expertly wielding, like a weapon, the universal sign of _Don’t talk to me, I’m busy being an introverted nerd._

This did not work.

Goth Girl carried on talking, seemingly oblivious to Kokichi’s intense attempt at appearing preoccupied. “The stars see a surprising, initially unwelcome, addition to a journey of yours. This will not be uncommon, but the experience will be unique in its happenstance.”

_What the hell does that even mean?!_ Kokichi thought despairingly. He clenched his pen so tightly it threatened to snap.

Ignoring his steadily growing and _very palpable_ irritation, Goth Girl monotonously announced, “Your feelings will be valued, but ultimately ignored in the grand scope of things. For you see...” And here she paused dramatically, to give Kokichi an aneurysm, probably. “The tides of progress wait for no one.” 

In lieu of a response, Kokichi further hunched his shoulders and pressed his pen into his notebook with more force than necessary. “ ** _SHUT THE FUCK UP_** ” read the big, black letters on the page.

Goth Girl did not, in fact, shut the fuck up. “This unexpected encounter will not be the only one of its kind,” she said, _still_ staring at the air in front of her face. “They are bountiful in quantity, and enlightening in quality. You may consider yourself fortunate, if viewed from one of the many facets of perception.”

_Fuck, why did I have to talk to her in the library?_ Kokichi silently bemoaned. _Who did I piss off in a past life? Is this divine retribution?_

Unable to restrain himself, he asked, “Do you just... make a hobby out of wording gibberish in the most confusing way possible?” 

Goth Girl ignored him, which he sort of expected. The impression Kokichi gathered from today was that she delighted in ignoring questions and found joy in confusing the hell out of people. 

Kokichi could have cried tears of sheer relief when his teacher stomped into the room. Goth Girl did not seem to notice the new addition to the classroom, as she carried on with her infuriatingly perplexing tangent. "Another angle, omnipotent in its nature, would reveal the underlying misfortune that saturates the situation—"

"Chabashira-san, quiet," snapped his teacher. "Class has started. Everyone, in your seats. _Now!"_

His classmates scrambled into their seats in a wild flurry of action while Kokichi slumped into his seat in pure relief. Goth Girl—or rather, Chabashira—continued gazing at absolutely nothing. She hadn’t moved at all, Kokichi noticed. _What is she, a rock?_

Class continued on as usual, with the teacher preying on unsuspecting students and gleefully torturing them with long, winding excerpts of Thoreau. Kokichi was starting to understand Thoreau’s infamous adversity to social interaction and the general populace. He too wished to live in a secluded cabin in the woods if it meant permanently avoiding his classmates.

_Especially_ Chabashira, the menace. 

•••

With a final ring of the bell, school was finally over for the day. Kokichi, saddled with an artillery of brutal homework, launched out of his seat in a desperate attempt to escape another interaction with Chabashira. Fortunately, said girl elected to remain in her seat. She didn’t even seem to register him brushing past her in a wild sprint to the exit. _Well. I’m not complaining. If I have to sit through another barrage of spiritual bullshit, I will literally lose my shit._

Kokichi deftly wove through the crowds of chattering students. They appeared to mostly congregate in the middle of the fucking hallway like the nuisances that they were. He sidestepped a girl loudly discussing— _ugh_ —the newest episode of _Danganronpa_ with her equally brainless friends. _Seriously, what’s so appealing about that train wreck of a show?_

Finally, Kokichi darted out into the school yard. He took a moment to steady himself and catch his breath. Dodging throngs of students like they were live bombs was _tiring._

His eye caught something bright red. _Oh no, please tell me that’s not..._

It was Gnome Girl. 

The previously impenetrable crowds students around her parted like the Red Sea, their conversations dying when she neared. Her killer combat boots echoed loudly in the silence around her, not unlike the footsteps of an axe-wielding executioner walking towards a soon-to-be-headless prisoner. Ignoring the fearful students around her, Gnome Girl stormed towards the school entrance which was _right where Kokichi was standing_. 

_Fuck, if she sees me, she’ll definitely try to kill me again!_ Kokichi _really_ did not want to be killed today, not when he was going to be meeting up with Saihara. With that thought in mind, he jumped off the school stairs and landed right in the bushes. Gnome Girl stomped up the stairs without a passing glance. _Phew._

He stumbled out of the bushes, and, brushing a few leaves out of his hair, got the hell out of there. _Okay, so, maybe I’m a little embarrassed about leaping into a bunch of bushes—but hey, I’m still alive, and that’s what really matters._

_...Hopefully nobody saw me though. But knowing my luck, the whole fucking school probably witnessed that. Great._

Kokichi slowed to a stop as he neared the Crossroads. He’d rather set himself on fire and fistfight a tank of piranhas before ever admitting this, but he was incredibly thrilled about meeting up with Saihara. In retrospect, it was a little embarrassing how psyched he was about one person he’d only met the day before. Kokichi carefully pretended this revelation never occurred to him and allowed himself a guilty moment of excitement.

That excitement promptly died when he saw an umbrella-toting pigtailed girl posture herself threateningly at Saihara, yelling something Kokichi couldn’t hear. Internally, he groaned. _What’s the deal with pigtailed girls today?_

Externally, he was bristling like a temperamental alleycat. He’d only known Saihara for less than a day, but he wasn’t just going to stand by and watch the guy get bullied or mugged or _whatever the hell was going on._ He’d readily fight tooth and nail for Saihara. It was the least he could do for his only friend, after all.

“Hey!”


	4. Introducing Harukawa Maki, AKA Ultimate Public Embarrassment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A nervous wreck tumbles onto the scene!

Harukawa Maki was currently faced with a most troubling predicament. 

Sato-sensei had assigned the class a new project today, which would usually be fine if she hadn’t also tacked on the whole _“partners”_ part. The second those words had left Sato-sensei’s mouth, Maki’s flight or fight response had activated. Predictably, she had chosen neither, as running out of the classroom screaming would definitely land her a detention. Meanwhile, _fighting_ Sato-sensei was entirely out of the question. Besides the fact that her teacher was too nice and kind-hearted to warrant any ill feelings, Maki didn’t have a single confrontational bone in her body. 

Instead, she had slumped down into her seat, inverse to her anxiety, which was steadily rising like an escaped balloon to the skies. _Why God_ , Maki lamented internally, _why did this have to happen?! I don’t know anybody here!_

Sadly, this wasn’t in the least bit exaggerated. Maki, in a fit of pure fear, had distanced herself from any possible forms of social interaction. She spoke as little as possible, and in the rare moments of verbal communication, her volume was always so low people had to ask her to repeat herself, thus further amping her stress levels and causing her volume to become nigh inaudible. Having succeeded in her social distancing, Maki was not unlike an isolated island out in the big, blue, _terrifying_ sea. 

This was now coming back to bite her in the butt.

Already, her classmates had dispersed from their seats like ants, excitedly asking one another to be partners. The noise and chatter, nearly deafening, was simultaneously muffled _and_ amplified in Maki’s ears. She slowly sank deeper into her seat. _Maybe if I hide, Sato-sensei won’t remember I exist and can't force me to partner with anybody, so I’ll finish this project by myself!_

Slightly cheered by this thought, Maki continued her descent downwards. Unfortunately, Sato-sensei apparently possessed hawk-like eyesight and zeroed in on Maki like an attack missile.

“Harukawa-san,” she began, then winced when Maki jerked upwards and slammed her knees into her desk. “Uh, oh my, are you alright?”

“P-Peachy!” Maki squeaked in a high pitched voice, like an embarrassment. _Why did I say that?! Who even says that anymore?_

Sato-sensei, relieved that Maki wasn’t currently experiencing any medical emergency, continued on with what she had been intending to ask. “Have you gotten a partner yet? I’m afraid it _is_ a mandatory requirement.”

“Um,” Maki said, deliberating the consequences of lying to her teacher’s face. “No… I don’t, I don’t really know anybody here, y-you see...”

“Ah, then I suppose we’ll have to find a partner for you,” Sato-sensei said kindly. God, Maki was going to start crying at just how _nice_ Sato-sensei was. Adjusting her glasses, her teacher glanced around the room. “It looks like everybody else has partnered up already...”

_Yes, yes, yes!_

“So that means...”

_I don’t have to partner up!_

“Oh, are you _kidding_ me,” Sato-sensei griped, her tone suddenly shifting from soft kindness to scathing annoyance.

“Huh?” Maki asked, both puzzled and skittishly apprehensive. 

Sato-sensei stormed over to the desk next to Maki’s, which belonged to a currently sleeping boy. _Ah, it’s just Hat Boy’s desk._ Hat Boy was Maki's nickname for his iconic clothing article, which he wore day after day without ever taking it off. She'd never seen his forehead or the top of his head. It had become a routine sight to see him sleeping at his desk with his hat stubbornly nestled in his hair. _He’s asleep as usual. How’s he supposed to partner up if he’s asleep?_

_Wait a second._

“Saihara-kun! Wake up right _now!_ _”_ Sato-sensei demanded loudly. When Hat Boy continued snoring on, she took a nearby ruler and hesitantly poked his hat. “Saihara-kun! Please?!” Another poke. She mumbled, “Fuck, I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit…” 

Maki’s brain was still putting two and two together. _If I haven’t got a partner, and Hat Boy hasn’t got one either, and everybody else in the class is already partnered up..._ She pulled anxiously at her pigtails. _Oh no. Please no. Oh no oh no oh no..._

Meanwhile, Sato-sensei began lightly whacking Hat Boy’s head. 

“Saihara—“ 

_Whack!_

“—kun!” 

_Whack!_

“Wake—“

_Whack!_

“—up!”

**_Whack!_ **

Maki was pretty sure it was illegal for teachers to inflict head damage on their students, but she was too scared about getting whacked in return to point that out.

At the very last whack, Hat Boy finally stirred awake. “Wh... huh?” He mumbled sleepily, rubbing his eyes. “Who’s tryna kill me...?”

Sato-sensei looked like her knees were about to give out. _“Finally—_ Saihara-kun, you really ought to put a stop to this bad habit of yours! You missed an important announcement!”

Hat Boy perked up. “School’s over?” He gasped with joy, and then shot out of his seat with surprising speed for someone who had just woken up. 

_“No!_ _”_ Sato-sensei grabbed him by the shirt collar as he zoomed by. “How did you even land on _that_ conclusion—Argh, nevermind. My announcement was about our new class project, which you would know if you hadn’t fallen asleep. _Again._ ”

“Oh, is that it?” Hat Boy asked, uninterested.

“You have to partner up with somebody,” Sato-sensei clarified.

Hat Boy pondered this for a brief second and then rummaged in his school bag. “My partner,” he announced, proudly displaying a Kirigiri plush he had pulled out from his bag. 

Sato-sensei’s fingers twitched, as if she was physically restraining herself from strangling him. “A _human_ partner,” she said, through gritted teeth. 

“Ah,” Hat Boy said. At this, he looked stumped. 

Sato-sensei finally took pity on him. “Fortunately for _you,_ Harukawa-san”—and here she gestured at Maki, who jumped like a rabbit experiencing sudden and fatal cardiac arrest—“is also in need of a partner.”

Hat Boy stared blankly at Sato-sensei.

She threw her hands up. “Harukawa-san’s your partner for this project. She’ll fill you in on the instructions. Goodbye, _I am_ **_done_ ** _with this.”_ She power-walked away, leaving Maki to fidget nervously while Hat Boy stared off into space.

“U-um,” she stuttered, after finally managing to gather up a few crumbs of courage. She tugged on her pigtails. “So, I, I guess we’re partners now, huh?” She gave him a shaky smile.

Hat Boy directed his blank stare at her. “Oh. I suppose.” And then, slumping onto the table, he promptly went back to sleep.

Maki was rather impressed with the sheer speed at which Hat Boy had managed to fall asleep. It made her wonder if he had even been fully conscious during the whole partner-debacle. He’d seemed lucid enough, but maybe he’d still been half-sleeping?

She then remembered her priorities. _Oh, right. I’m supposed to work with him on our project. And that requires him to be awake. And for me to talk to him._

There came that familiar creeping coldness.

_Oh no._

Anxiety clawed at her chest and crept up her throat.

_Talking. With another person._

Her hands tugged at her pigtails, this time with more desperately than before.

_Oh_ **_no_** _._

She was _not_ going to make it through this whole project.

•••

Sato-sensei looked up from her grading to quickly check-in on her current “problem pair”: Harukawa Maki and Saihara Shuichi. _Yikes. Definitely not a match made in heaven._

She’d always been a bit nicer to Harukawa, partially out of pity and partially because the girl’s parents had personally come up to Sato-sensei, got on their knees, and _begged_ for her to take it easy on Harukawa. Which... was rather concerning. To have your own parents publicly humiliate themselves while wailing about your crockpot of anxiety disorders really spoke volumes about your character.

Saihara on the other hand... Sato-sensei wasn't going to sugarcoat it: the kid was a fucking _disaster_. Everytime Sato-sensei called on him in class, he’d either be sleeping or would suddenly pretend to drop unconscious. He played video games during class and never turned in any of his homework. When asked what the hell was he doing with all the homework he received and _never bothered doing,_ Saihara had straight-up told her, “I stash ‘em under my bed! I’m gonna get a pet alligator, keep it under my bed, ‘n let it live on homework-bedding!”

Sato-sensei had then immediately called it a sick-day and gone home. 

Honestly, the only reason the kid hadn’t been expelled yet was because he somehow aced all the school-mandated tests and exams, even though Sato-sensei was fairly certain he didn’t even know what the word “studying” meant. And also he was rich. _Absurdly_ rich.

It seriously hurt her pride as a teacher to witness a student-prodigy slack off and squander their intellect. It also made her feel vaguely murderous.

Looking at the pair now, Sato-sensei felt pretty bad. This feeling was reserved for only Harukawa because she couldn’t give two shits about Saihara. The girl looked like she was currently having a mental breakdown while she slowly rendered herself bald by constantly yanking on her pigtails. Oblivious to his partner’s mental deterioration, Saihara was asleep, as usual.

If Harukawa managed to make it out of the project on one piece, she’d be earning a well-deserved full score of 100, no matter how shitty their project turned out to be. _Anyone_ deserved a reward for putting up with Saihara.

•••

Maki hovered nervously over Hat Boy, who was _still_ asleep even though lunch had already long passed and school was about to be let out. His tenacity in sleeping was pretty commendable, Maki would give him that. However, his admirable prowess in staying unconscious meant that Maki had been unable to talk to him at all. 

_How are we supposed to do a whole project like this?!_ Maki thought despairingly. _It’s literally worth a quarter of our entire English grade!_

Hat Boy snored on. Obviously, he didn’t share Maki’s worries. 

Maybe she should try whacking him with a ruler like Sato-sensei had done? But... that had been pretty mean, and Maki wasn’t sure if she could get away with inciting violence on another student. Also, just the thought of bludgeoning someone with a ruler made Maki feel faint. _Violence in any shape or form is just horrible!_

At that moment, the bell rang, badly shocking Maki out of her contemplation. She jumped and momentarily hid her head in her arms, only to realize how stupid she probably looked and quickly tried to straighten herself up. By the time she looked up, Hat Boy was awake and bolting out of his seat.

“A-Ah, hey—” Maki began, reaching a hand out towards him. He didn’t seem to notice her and ran to the open window. “Wait! Please, I need to—” Hat Boy jumped out the window.

_Oh my god—!_ Maki ran to the window, gripping the window ledge and poking her head out. Hat Boy had made it safely to the ground, as was routine. She was _never_ going to get used to how he entered and left the classroom. Everytime Hat Boy jumped out of the window, her heart plummeted with him. She watched him cheerfully dart out of the school gates before belatedly realizing that she had to go after him. She hadn’t even gotten his number to contact him yet! 

Quickly gathering her school bag, Maki sprinted out of the classroom, her long hair trailing behind her, and, instead of a window, she used the door, like a normal person. To her dismay, the hallways were as crowded as ever. Today, they were flooded with a thick miasma of smoke. Either the students were holding yet another impromptu rave or someone had set the labs on fire _again._ Rich, private school kids had way too much time on their hands. 

Then the fire alarm went off. Ah, so it had been the labs this time. The loud shrieking of the alarm deafened Maki’s ears. Her vision swam, the swarms of students darting to and fro blurring into one big, shifting mess. Her head pounded in tandem with the whining of the alarm while her heart began beating erratically. She felt perilously close to passing out. _I have to get out of here! Oh god, oh god, oh god—_

She pushed through the throngs of students, so nauseous that she couldn’t bother bringing herself to care about how terribly rude she was being. Thankfully, her classroom was located on the second floor, so she only had to stumble down one flight of stairs. At this moment, she was _so_ incredibly grateful that her classroom wasn’t on the sixth floor. 

_Who even needs a school with six floors?_ Maki thought dizzily as she pushed her way out of the school doors. _Other than to show off how rich you are, that is. Having six floors while you also host bored pyromaniacs as students is just a recipe for disaster!_

With the shrieking of the fire alarm now fading behind her, Maki could finally take a moment to collect herself. She rested her sweaty hands on her knees as she gulped in deep breaths. Right when the last dredges of her panic faded away, a new kind of anxiety slammed into her. The oppressive sky seemed bigger than ever, a stretching expanse of suffocating blue that loomed over her, and _oh_ _god_ she felt so horribly _exposed_. All the nerves in her body howled at her and screamed _“Danger!”_ while she hurriedly fished out her pastel pink umbrella from her bag. Her hands shook as she attempted to open her umbrella, uselessly missing the button several times. After another few desperate tries, the umbrella sprung open above her, and all was well again. 

Actually all was _not_ well, because Maki still had to track down Hat Boy. She was fairly certain he was somewhere along her usual route home, as they took the same path home. She hurried along the familiar road, keeping an eye out for any hat-wearing boys. 

She stumbled along the concrete sidewalk until she reached a familiar destination: the Crossroads. The cluttered array of jutting signs pointing at wildly different directions was both an eclectic and mundane sight. Maki’s heart soared when she spotted a hat-wearing, blue-haired boy waiting by a stop sign with his attention fixed to his phone. It was Hat Boy!

As Maki neared him, she could hear him humming a happy little tune. Unlike his usual senseless humming, Hat Boy was quietly singing some curious lyrics. “Wait-ing for Ouma-kun... Wait-ing for Ouma-kun...” 

_Aw, how adorable._ Maki thought, endeared, and then shook her head. _Don’t get sidetracked! I have to get his contact number and then we’re going to work on the project! Together! Alright! I can do this!_

With that plan in place, she was now faced with another hurdle. _How do I get his attention...?_ She thought for a moment. _You usually start a conversation with a nice, calm greeting, right?_

Maki took a deep breath, spread her feet into a confident stance, and pointed a finger at Hat Boy. “Hey, you!”

“A-Ah?” Hat Boy looked up, startled. 

_Oh my god that was horrible! Quick! Fix this!_ “Uh, um,” said Maki very elegantly. She was still frozen in her previous pose, but was also sweating bullets. Her fingers, curled tightly around her umbrella handle, were slick with tension. “H-Hat Boy,” she tried, the nickname slipping out unconsciously, “h-how was—how was your day?” _Wow, that was slightly decent! Score!_

Hat Boy tilted his head, now looking even more hopelessly bewildered. “Hat… boy…?” He asked, sounding out each word slowly. Maki’s face flushed bright red and she opened her mouth to probably blurt out something even more mortifying when—

There came a distant shout. “Hey!”

“Oh!” Hat Boy instantly perked up and whipped his head in the direction of the shout at such an alarming speed that Maki briefly worried about whiplash. His entire face seemed to glow with pure, unadulterated joy. “Ohh! It’s Ouma-kun!” He yelled excitedly and waved his arm enthusiastically, jumping up and down. “Hiiii Ouma-kuuun!”

A short, uniform-wearing purple-haired boy with a murderous expression etched onto his face sprinted up to them. He skidded to a stop in between Maki and Hat Boy and assumed a defensive stance, as if to shield Hat Boy from her oh so terrible presence or something. Upon sensing the purple-haired boy’s bloodthirsty aura, Maki squeaked and instantly backed up a few feet. 

“What’re you doing to Saihara?” Murder-Face Purple-Haired Boy asked darkly. 

“I, uh—” Maki floundered for words, a task made even harder while pinned under the lethal glare of the boy. _This guy’s covered in bruises and cuts! He looks ready to murder me at the drop of a hat! Is he a delinquent?! But—he’s so tiny!_ “I was just—”

Hat Boy interrupted her. “She wanted my day, I think,” he said thoughtfully.

“What?” Murder-Face Purple Boy asked. 

“Oh! And she called my hat a boy!”

“What?!”

_No! That's not it at all!_ Maki's mind wailed despairingly.

“Umm,” Hat Boy said, a bit mournfully, “I don’t think I remembered that correctly…”

Meanwhile, Maki was still stuttering out words in a desperate attempt to fix the rapidly deteriorating situation. It wasn’t working. “N-No! Well, actually, yes? But! It’s not like that—”

Murder-Face Purple Boy apparently decided that her input was no longer needed. He turned to fully face Hat Boy. “Saihara, who is this girl?”

Hat Boy beamed blissfully. “I have no idea!”

This shocked Maki out of the hole she had been digging herself into. “Huh?” She said, completely perplexed. “H-How do you not know who I am? We’re classmates!”

Hat Boy stared at her, uncomprehending. 

“I sit next to you everyday?”

More vapid staring.

"Sato-sensei assigned us as partners for our English project? This morning? Y-You know?”

“Oh,” Hat Boy said blankly. He evidently did _not_ know.

Murder Purple Boy looked back and forth at the two of them, befuddlement overtaking some of the murderous intent on his face. “Is she... bothering you?” He asked, then muttered, “I’m not sure if assigning your hat a gender counts as bullying but…”

Maki rushed to clarify. “N-No!” She nearly shrieked, waving her hands in an attempt at a placating gesture and failing miserably. “No bullying! I just—I just wanted to chat with him!” _Please don’t kill me please don’t kill me please don’t kill me..._

“Is that true?” Asked Murder Purple Boy. He looked at Hat Boy for confirmation, only to find that he had become thoroughly distracted by a butterfly. “Oi, Saihara,” said Purple Boy, snapping his fingers in Hat Boy’s face, “you’ve got to pay attention to things that involve you.”

"Sorry Ouma-kun!" Hat Boy chirped and reluctantly tore his eyes away from the pretty monarch he’d been avidly observing. 

Purple Boy rolled his eyes with palpable fondness. “Is it true that she sits next to you in class?”

“Um, um, I dunno...” Hat Boy pondered, tapping his fingers on his cheek, “I’m always too busy with sleeping ‘n playing video games to notice...” He immediately backtracked upon seeing Purple Boy’s sour face. “Whoops! Pretend you didn’t hear that part!”

Maki took this as the chance to jump in. “I _do_ sit next to him! I really do! W-We share all the same classes and Hat Boy—”

“Wow, Ouma-kun! Your face is looking _extra_ murderous today!”

“—never pays attention to any of them! H-He’s always playing _Danganronpa_ or sleeping or—”

Purple Boy went back to Murder-Face Purple Boy with a single suspicious glare, asking in a low, threatening voice, “Are you stalking him?” At the same time, Hat Boy cheerfully said in a loud, exuberant volume, “Oh! You know _Danganronpa_?”

“It really seems so, because you pay a _lot_ of unnecessary attention to him...”

“Hey, hey, do you play any of the games? Which one’s your favorite?”

“And now you’re sneaking up on him and bullying him? Wow. That’s just low.”

“Who’s your favorite character? Favorite trial? Execution?”

Maki’s head swam, trying to sort out the barrage of questions she was being assaulted with. “I-I’m not stalking him! I promise! I just notice... things... And I like the first game the best! A-And I’m not bullying him! I double promise!”

Hat Boy’s eyes shone with blatant glee and he skipped forward giddily. “Oooh, the first one’s _always_ a classic! What makes you like it so, so much?”

“W-Well, it’s one of the only _Danganronpa_ games I’ve played...”

“Really really? That’s a total shame! You’re missing out on _lots!_ Have you played the 3D RPG fighter one?”

“Ah, um, are you referring to _Ultra Despair Girls_ or _Danganronpa: Final Dead Hour_?”

“Mmm, both! Isn’t it _so_ satisfying to see Team DR’s massive improvement at 3D graphics?”

Purple Boy cut in, voice hard, “Hey, you guys are getting off track.” He wrinkled his nose, looking a bit peeved. 

“Sorry Ouma-kun! / S-Sorry!” They replied, at the same time.

Purple Boy huffed, but, when he looked at Maki, his face was less terrifying and more exasperated. “Hm, you don’t seem too bad. Saihara seems to like you... so.” He shrugged. “Anyways, I never learned your name. I’m Ouma Kokichi and you probably know Saihara’s name already... although you _do_ call him Hat Boy, so I’m not too sure...”

Maki could have melted into a puddle of pure relief. She wasn’t going to get viciously and brutally murdered anymore! _Praise the gods!_ “It’s v-very nice to meet you, Oma-kun!”

Purple Boy scratched his bandaged cheek awkwardly. “It’s actually Ouma, with a ‘u’.”

“H-Huh?” Hadn’t that been what she had just said?

“Ah, forget it. This always happens.”

In an eager attempt to amend her blunder, Maki nodded her head with a little too much gusto and said, “O-Oh yes, I’ll be sure to keep that in mind! Um, also! I know Hat Boy’s name! The nickname’s just a habit, you see... But, but if it bothers him, I’ll try my best to stop!”

Hat Boy grinned at her. “I like it! I like it tons! I never knew my hat was a boy! Now I just need to name him!”

Purple Boy— _Ouma, with a “u”,_ her mind reminded her—laughed lightly. “I don’t think you quite get it,” he said, smiling. Maki was privately astonished at how much more jubilant and youthful he looked when he didn’t have manslaughter at the forefront of his mind. He tilted his head at Maki. “And your name is...?”

“M-Me?” _Yes, of course you. Literally who else?_ “I’m Harukawa Maki!” Looking towards Hat Boy, she asked, “Now that you heard my name, do you _finally_ remember me?”

Hat Boy gave her a winning smile. “Nope!” 

_“Argh!”_

“Now that that’s over with,” Ouma said, then fixed his attention on Hat Boy, “Saihara, what do you want to do today? We could head to your house or...”

“Oh! Oh!” Hat Boy clapped his hands merrily and did a little dance in place. “I’m super-mega-uber hungry! Let’s go to my favorite café!”

“A café... That sounds nice,” Ouma deliberated. “But, why’re you _so_ hungry today?”

“Slept through lunch...”

“That’s why you didn’t text me, huh... Geez, you really need to take better care of yourself!”

“Ehehe, sorry Ouma-kun!”

“Um, what’re you apologizing for? And why to me? If anything, you should be apologizing to yourself for starving yourself.”

“Sorry me!”

_“Pfft,_ I didn’t mean it _literally_.”

Maki watched the two ping-pong back and forth. They seemed to forget that she was still standing _right there._ She didn’t take any offense to this, though, as she was already accustomed to this happening to her. Sometimes, even her own parents forgot she existed until she made a convenient squeak.

She guessed now was the time to remind the two of her presence. Plus, she still had to get Hat Boy’s number. “Um... Excuse me..."

Ouma looked at her, mildly surprised. So he _had_ forgotten she’d been standing there. “Oh, Harukawa-san, did you want to come too?” He said kindly. “You can come with us, if you want.” It still boggled Maki’s mind how much of a different person he was when he didn’t think she was some creepy stalker that preyed on hat-wearing boys. 

Hat Boy gasped and chimed in. “Kawa-san’s coming? Yay! It’s like what everybody says: two’s a, um, crowd, and three’s company! Y’know?”

“No... I don’t think that’s it...”

Maki sort of _really_ didn’t want to go. Today had been awfully eventful enough. If she had to spend another few more hours in the presence of other living human beings, she would probably pass out and maybe even _die._ “N-No, it’s fine! I just need—”

“Ooooh, I bet Kawa-san’ll just love the café! Although, ah, I dunno if Ouma-kun...”

“You don’t know if I what?”

Maki tried to speak up. “I—”

“Um, now that I think about it, Ouma-kun actually might not like it...? Ehehe...”

“Saihara, if it’s your favorite café, then I’ll tolerate it for you. Besides, I’m sure it can't be _that_ bad.”

Again, Maki tried to cut in. “H-Hey—”

“Weeell, if Ouma-kun is _sure..._ ”

“What, is it like, a super run-down and dingy shithole? Or worse, a _Danganronpa_ café?”

“Uhhhhh...” Hat Boy twirled a lock of hair nervously.

Ouma stared disbelievingly at him. “No way.”

_“Yes_ way, actually...”

Ouma groaned. “Oh, _of course._ Should’ve known. _Danganronpa_ ’s your favorite show and all. _Duh.”_

At this point, Maki had given up and had instead settled in to watch the show unfolding before her eyes.

Hat Boy pouted and rocked on his heels. He looked devastatingly sad. “If Ouma-kun really, really, _really_ hates it _that_ much, then—”

Ouma rushed to reassure him. “No, no, i-it’s okay! I don’t... _hate_ it! I’m just a bit annoyed by it, is all. I could absolutely go to a,” and here, he spoke through gritted teeth, _"Danganronpa_ café and have a good time. A great time, even!”

Lighting up like a Christmas tree, Hat Boy broke into a dazzling grin. “Really? Wow! Ouma-kun’s _amazing!_ To be able to have a _great_ time while completely surrounded by something he hates... How super! _Wow!_ ”

Ouma looked like he was in physical pain. “Yeah. _Super._ ” Although he sounded like his very soul was dying in real time as he forced the words out of his mouth, there was still a faint blush on his face. _Huh. Interesting._

“Let’s go right now!” Hat Boy exclaimed, clapping his hands again. “I can’t _wait_ to eat some mega yummy bean-paste buns with Ouma-kun and Kawa-san!” He then ran off in a random direction, presumably towards the café.

Ouma shot Maki a pinched expression, his face somehow communicating to her, “If I have to suffer, then so do you.” He ran after Hat Boy with a “Wait up, Saihara!”

Maki sighed and slumped her shoulders. She took a brief moment to breathe in slowly and twirl her umbrella, calming herself, and then jolted when she heard Hat Boy yell, “Hurry up Kawa-san!” 

“A-Ah, coming!” She called back, and took off running after the two boys.

What exactly had she gotten herself into?


	5. Welcome to: Danganronpa Café!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Maki straight-up DIES. They have fun anyways!

The café they arrived at was the gaudiest, ugliest mish-mash of neon pink and black-and-white checkers Kokichi had ever seen. He felt personally offended just gazing at Café _Danganronpa_ in all its shitty glory. Beside him, Saihara looked reverently at the blinking logo, blatant adoration shining in his amber eyes.

“Isn’t it just super duper _beautiful?_ _”_ he asked breathily. 

Possibly sensing Kokichi’s steadily growing murderous intent, Harukawa not-so stealthily hid behind Saihara.

Upon entering the café, Kokichi’s eyes were assaulted by a kaleidoscope of colors that very clearly did not belong in a fifty-feet radius near each other. Deep reds were paired with puke-colored greens and accented by more neon pinks. The floor was an obnoxious checkerboard pattern that gave him a headache from just looking at it for too long. Cardboard cutouts of various anime-looking characters, each sporting wild, flashy designs, were scattered throughout the café. A fast-paced, head-pounding electro-beat blasted out of the speakers wired to the walls. Kokichi glowered angrily at a cheap cardboard cut-out of an outrageously busty blonde girl.

“Junko-senpai,” Saihara said, bowing his head like “Junko” and her big-ass tits were a goddess to be revered. 

Kokichi glowered harder. If looks could kill, the cardboard cutout would currently be a smoldering pile of ashes. He then tried to school his features into something less murderous and more socially acceptable when he heard Harukawa quietly squeak and shuffle a few inches away.

Saihara hummed and led them to a nearby booth. “We’ll sit here!” he chirped loudly and clapped his hands. “Oh! This is Ouma-kun and Kawa-san’s first time here right? I’ll get _menus!”_ He flounced off.

Kokichi slunk into one side of the booth while Harukawa nervously took the other. He glared at the dinky tabletop like it had just killed his dog and pissed on his car. He _really_ did _not_ want to be here, in a _Danganronpa_ -infested café full of the ugliest, vilest eyesores that had the _nerve_ to be labelled as “interior decor”—

“Um,” Harukawa said, at a barely audible volume, reminding Kokichi that she did, in fact, exist. “S-So! Do you, uh, like Danganronpa, too?”

Kokichi opened his mouth and was about to very politely tell her just how much he absolutely **_loved_ ** _Danganronpa_ when Saihara waltzed up to the booth. 

He slapped three menus down. “Menus!” he announced to the world, as if neither of them had eyes. 

“Thanks,” Kokichi said, because he at least had to retain some modicum of self-control when it came to dealing with Saihara. Maintaining friendships was _so_ difficult. 

Harukawa stammered out a quiet thanks of her own and quickly hid her face with her menu, not so much reading it as smothering herself with it.

Saihara slid into the booth next to Kokichi, who definitely did _not_ quietly revel in the tiny, miniscule fact that Saihara had chosen to sit next to _him_ and not Harukawa, because that would be _ridiculous_ and _really petty_. 

Kokichi cleared his throat, trying to wave away the odd, uncalled for smugness. He blindly focused on something else. “Hey, why’d you get a menu for yourself? I thought you came here pretty often?”

Saihara beamed like Kokichi had just blessed him with the holy rays of enlightenment. “Oh! I just like looking at the pictures!” he said, brandishing his menu like a weapon and shoving it into Kokichi’s face. “Look! They have Kirigiri-senpai on there!” And, lowering his voice into a whisper but sort of failing at it, he revealed to Kokichi, “She’s my _favorite!"_

“Uh,” Kokichi said eloquently. “That’s nice. I think.”

Harukawa perked up. “Y-You like Kirigiri-san? She’s really p-pretty, and smart!” She deflated after finishing speaking, looking rattled and worn out. Kokichi silently applauded her for managing the momentous feat that was social interaction.

_“Like her?"_ Saihara repeated, slowly leaning across the table and rapidly destroying Harukawa’s personal space. “‘Course I like her! In fact! I _love_ her! _Worship_ her! She’s a goddess among the ultimates! Her prowess! _Unmatched!_ _”_ He advanced on Harukawa, who began sweating and sinking down into her seat, obviously regretting being born. “She’s a _prodigy_ _,_ with her elaborate mental deductions and! Her cool air of mystery! Her incredibly intelligent mind! She’s the absolute, ultimate _best!_ _”_ Saihara’s eyes were swirling pools of searing, yellow addiction. “A sensational genius who graces the world with her mere _existence!_ She’s the most competent, proficient, capable detective this franchise has _ever_ laid their undeserving, unworthy eyes on! _Of course I like her!_ _”_ By the end of his impressive and frightening tirade, Saihara basically had his entire body on the table, his face centimeters away from Harukawa, who looked like she was attempting to fuse into the cushions behind her in a desperate attempt to get away. 

Taking mercy on the quietly shivering, shell-shocked girl, Kokichi grabbed Saihara by the collar of his shirt and pulled him back into his seat. “Oi, aren’t you worried about people staring?” He hissed at Saihara. The blue-haired boy simply blinked and tilted his head as if he hadn’t just delivered a poetic but frankly disturbing speech about his fictional waifu.

“They’re not! Staring, that is.” He smiled cheerfully at Kokichi. Kokichi was loath to admit that he was right. “Danganronpa fans are used to this kinda thing!”

_In other words, Danganronpa fans are fucking weird._

Saihara turned to his menu and hummed a nameless tune, lovingly tracing Kirigiri’s shittily printed chibi form with a finger.

_Okay..._ Kokichi thought, disturbed. _Maybe he’s a bit more fucked-up than I thought. I can work with this... Maybe._

Harukawa was still currently trying to meld her body into the seat behind her, her eyes wide and fearful. She looked like a deer in headlights. Kokichi couldn’t help but share her shock. That had been the most he’d ever heard Saihara say in one sitting, and _wow_ had he had looked downright _psychotic_ _._ Kokichi wouldn’t be surprised if Harukawa took this moment to bolt out of the café and out of their lives forever.

It was at this moment that a waitress rolled up. Literally. She was wearing roller skates, which seemed to be a terrible decision as she was also simultaneously balancing a tray of wavering, fragile glasses of water. She asked for their orders, wobbling a bit and nearly splashing water onto Saihara, who looked unfazed. 

As Kokichi hadn’t looked at his own menu at all, he elected to quickly skim through the choices and ordered a simple slice of coffee cake. Harukawa mumbled out her order of a cup of hot chocolate, and Saihara went for something called “Kirigiri-red-bean-paste-buns,” because _of course._

When the waitress collected their menus and roller skated away, Kokichi turned to Saihara. “This is a café right? How come we’re being served like it’s a restaurant? Most café’s don’t bother with waiters...”

Saihara looked contemplative, eyes distant, hand to his chin. Kokichi waited patiently. 

Finally, Saihara spoke. “This is a _Dangan_ café,” he said, as if that answered anything at all. 

“How...” Kokichi began, and then shook his head. Getting a straight answer out of Saihara was sometimes one of the most tedious, labor-intensive activities ever. He switched topics. “Whatever. Hey, you’re gonna wash your hands, right?”

Saihara looked utterly bewildered. He held his hands up to his face, gazing at them like they were foreign, alien objects that he had never seen before in his life. “Why?” 

“Saihara,” Kokichi said, exasperated, “they’re covered in dirt.”

It was then that he seemed to finally noticed the fine layer of dirt covering his hands. “Oh,” was all he said.

“What were you even doing to get them so dirty?”

“Climbed the school walls.”

“What— _Why?!”_

“Ouma-kun,” Saihara said, as if Kokichi was being a particularly dim five year-old who didn’t understand that _no, you’re not supposed to eat a gallon of glue on a daily basis._ “That’s how I enter and leave the school. Through the window! Y’know?”

“No, I really don’t know,” Kokichi sighed tiredly. He sort of felt like he was repeating himself at this point. He squinted his eyes at Saihara and his scrawny, stick-looking arms. “There’s no way you climb the school walls everyday. You’re kidding,” he said, and then feeling a bit unsure because that actually seemed like a _very_ Saihara thing to do, “right?” 

“U-Um,” came a feeble voice from in front of Kokichi. Oh, right. Harukawa. “Actually, Hat Boy really does enter and leave class through the window. He, he’s never once used the classroom door...” 

Said boy grinned at Harukawa. “See! Kawa-san gets it!” Harukawa looked rather dazed—a likely side-effect of being the recipient of Saihara’s blindingly beautiful smile.

Kokichi felt his life force being slowly sapped out of him the longer he stayed in this god-awful café. “Why.”

Saihara cocked his head to the side like an adorably perplexed puppy. “‘Cos Kawa-san’s my classmate ‘n she’s capable of understanding... stuff...!”

A sigh. “No. I meant, why do you climb through the window everyday as opposed to, say, _walking through the door like a normal person?”_

“Oh.” A beat. “I hadn’t thought of that!”

_Holy shit. Someone save me from this living hell._

The waitress from before rolled into view, precariously balanced trays wobbling dangerously in her hands. She quickly deposited their orders and skated off, followed by a distant crash and several swears.

Harukawa looked at Kokichi admiringly. “Y-You’re very smart, you know.”

“Is using the door for its intended purpose really such a revolutionary concept?” Kokichi asked, feeling pretty dead inside.

“Yeah!”

“M-Maybe?”

Kokichi moodily stabbed his cake. His attention was then quickly diverted by Saihara (an increasingly common thing). 

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on!” Kokichi said. “Saihara, you’re not gonna eat those buns with dirty hands, are you?”

Saihara beamed at him. “Yeah!” He cheered, and then raised his hand like he was going to slap his fucking food like a three year-old would to a bald man’s shiny head. 

Kokichi lunged forward and grabbed Saihara’s hand. _“Oh my god,”_ he said. _“_ _Please_ wash your hands. They’re _still_ covered in dirt.”

Saihara stared at Kokichi’s hand as if he had just sighted God. His mouth was open in an O-shape as a rosy flush rose to his face. His big, bright eyes traveled from their joined hands to Kokichi’s face, unblinking. It suddenly struck Kokichi that Saihara looked _unfairly_ cute, and thus made Kokichi feel distinctly uncomfortable. 

Feeling absurdly self-conscious, he quickly ripped his hand away like it was on fire, mumbling, “Wash your hands or y-you'll get sick...”

A peculiar expression overtook Saihara’s face. Looking like the cat who got the cream, he said, “Oh but Ouma-kun’s coming too!”

“Huh? Why?”

“Ouma-kun’s hand is also dirty now!” Saihara said gleefully.

Kokichi glanced at his hand only to find that it was indeed smudged with dirt. Apparently, some of Saihara’s dirt had transferred to Kokichi’s hand when he had grabbed him. Feeling like he’d just been conned, he murmured, “How did you...?”

“Let’s go, let’s go!” Saihara chanted, yanking Kokichi out of the booth. 

Kokichi faced Harukawa, who was steadily sliding down in her seat. “Harukawa-san, we’ll be back soon. Watch our stuff, will you?” She squeaked out a barely imperceptible “O-Okay!” and continued sinking into her seat. By now, only her eyes and her forehead were visible.

During the few seconds Kokichi had spent talking to Harukawa, Saihara had taken the liberty to wander off, so Kokichi had to chase after him. The two entered the weirdly designed door, which greatly resembled the entryway to a submarine, that was, presumably, the bathroom.

Thankfully, the inside of the bathroom was more toned down than the café itself. The decor wasn’t much better, but the props and cutouts of bombastic characters had lessened in quantity. The sickening, head-pounding music was muffled and much quieter in the bathroom. The dim lighting was a complete disaster, though.

“This is the bathroom!” Saihara announced unhelpfully. 

Kokichi huffed out a laugh and turned on the faucet. As he washed his hands, he mulled over what had just happened. Getting him to accompany Saihara here had been a deliberate choice. Had he... planned this out? 

He thought back to his earlier suspicion, that Saihara had been faking his sadness to persuade Kokichi into going along with his whims. He'd effortlessly switched from tearful misery to bright, blinding happiness. And it hadn't just been once, either. It had occurred multiple times, all when he'd wanted Kokichi to comply with his wishes. Saihara's fluid mood swings seemed a little _too_ deliberate to be coincidental... right?

He surreptitiously glanced at Saihara out of the corner of his eye. The blue-haired boy was currently humming and cheerfully scrubbing his hands with the café’s cheap soap. He was so focused on thoroughly washing his hands that the tip of his tongue stuck out. The sight was so heart-wrenchingly adorable that Kokichi quickly averted his eyes, feeling like he’d just seen something he shouldn’t have. _Nah. No way a guy like him could plan something out like that and—what? Blatantly manipulate me? Now that I think about it some more, it just sounds wholly ridiculous. I’m just being paranoid as usual._

He felt a bit ashamed, thinking such shifty thoughts about Saihara. After all, Saihara'd been nothing but nice, if not a little eccentric, to Kokichi, even after he had admitted to disliking his favorite show. Most _Danganronpa_ fans would have descended on Kokichi like piranhas to blood. He shook his head, attempting to clear his head. Now was not the time to mentally debate whether or not his friend was emotionally manipulating him. _Why do I do this to myself,_ he lamented in his head. He quietly ignored the little seed of doubt that lingered in the recesses of his mind.

After drying his hands, Kokichi made to leave, only to stop with a thought: _Should I wait for Saihara...? This is what friends usually do, right? God, I suck at this._

Unfortunately, Saihara didn’t look like he was going to be leaving anytime soon. He was staring down blankly as he watched water run over his hands. _Ah, he zoned out again._

“Saihara,” Kokichi said, “did you just log out of your brain? Hello?” He waved a hand in front of Saihara’s face. “Hey!” When he didn’t respond, Kokichi flicked what little water was left on his hands onto the boy’s face.

Saihara jolted, blinking his eyes and looking around. “Wha—? Ouma-kun? My face? Is wet?” He said, adorably confused.

“Yeah, sorry,” Kokichi said, not sorry. “You blanked out again. What were you thinking so hard about? I swear, I could literally hear your brain overheating.”

“You could?” Saihara asked, eyes wide. “Wow, Ouma-kun’s hearing is _amazing!”_

“Huh? No, I was just jo—”

“Rock,” Saihara suddenly said.

“What?”

Saihara dug into his pocket, pulled something out, and then thrusted it into Kokichi’s hand. Kokichi looked at whatever the hell Saihara had just forced onto him. Just like Saihara had said, it was indeed a rock—specifically, a shiny, reflective, purple rock as big as Kokichi’s thumb. He looked back up at Saihara, who had been staring at him intently. Kokichi stashed the rock into his pocket. “Thanks…?”

Seemingly pleased by his uncertain reply, Saihara beamed and continued staring unblinkingly at Kokichi, who began slightly sweating from the intensity of his gaze. The two stood there, awkwardly, in the shittily lit bathroom, like a bad repeat of what had transpired at Saihara’s house. Kokichi silently cursed his existence. 

“Okay!” Kokichi said loudly, finally breaking the silence. _Fuck, why did I have to be born with no social skills?_ “We should, uh, head back before Harukawa-san escapes, or something.” 

After a happy chirp of agreement from Saihara, the two made their way back to their table. To Kokichi’s surprise, Harukawa was still seated at the table, although she looked vaguely ill. 

“Not to be rude,” Kokichi said, then winced when Harukawa nearly slammed her head into the back of her seat in surprise, “but I’m sort of amazed you haven’t run off yet.”

Harukawa swayed slightly. “Me too,” she mumbled. _Wow, she looks_ **_really_ ** _sick._

By his side, Saihara hummed and then bit into his buns. “Kawa-san, gimme your phone.”

“H-Huh?” Harukawa asked, puzzled. 

“Kawa-san wants my number! Right? Right!”

“Yes, but... um, how did you know? I never got around to asking you...”

“Oh,” Saihara said flippantly, “I just guessed. Now gimme!” He made grabby-hands at her. 

Harukawa reluctantly handed over her phone. It was pink and glittery and sort of an eyesore. Kokichi kept that last bit to himself. 

Saihara typed in something, made a sour face, deleted what he’d typed, then repeated the process two more times. 

“Um,” Harukawa said, “do you need help, or—”

“Here you go!” Saihara proclaimed and then shoved the phone into her face. 

Harukawa blinked rapidly and hesitantly accepted the device. She looked at the screen. “Oh,” she murmured, not quite believing her eyes, “w-what a... unique name...”

Kokichi’s curiosity was piqued. “What did he name himself? He names himself the most _flamboyant_ names I’ve ever seen. Lemme see.”

She weakly showed him the screen, which read “.｡.:*☆★ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅSAIHARA!!!ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ★☆*:.｡.”

“Ah,” he said. 

Saihara grinned a luminous smile. “Isn’t it mega cool-looking?”

Kokichi mulled over his choice of words in his head. “It definitely suits you,” was what he finally said. Saihara positively _glowed_ with happiness as if Kokichi had just declared that Saihara had won the lottery.

“Kawa-san’s going to pass out soon,” he announced casually, as if he was discussing the weather.

“Wait, what?!” Kokichi whipped his head towards Saihara, and then at Harukawa, who blinked, looking utterly baffled. “Saihara... what? Uh, you _do_ know that it’s pretty rude to just tell people that they’re going to conk out, right?”

Saihara smiled at him. “Yep!”

“Uh, okay, then... why would you—”

“Mmm, I wasn’t lying though! ‘Cos I remembered that Ouma-kun hates liars,” Saihara said, his coy smile _doing_ things to Kokichi’s heart. “Kawa-san is totally gonna pass out in, hmm, ah, two-ish minutes.”

Harukawa blinked rapidly, finally overcoming her shock. “W-What do you mean, Hat Boy? I, I feel fine! Umm... b-but maybe I do feel a _little_ light-headed.” Her voice came out faint and breathless. 

Kokichi squinted at her, causing her to squirm nervously. “She _does_ look really pale...”

“Kawa-san’s pupils are blown, her eyes are unfocused, she’s sweating lots, ‘n she’s blinking _waaay_ too much to be qualified as natural,” Saihara pointed out cheerfully, then sent Kokichi an innocent smile as if he hadn’t unloaded a barrage of information onto him. Right on cue, Harukawa blinked her eyes and swayed in her seat, the cup of hot chocolate she clutched tightly in her hands wobbling with her. Oblivious to her plight, Saihara continued, _“And_ she’s super duper pale, just like Ouma-kun said. _Wow!_ Ouma-kun is _so_ smart!” 

Kokichi was too preoccupied with the deathly pale girl in front of him who looked ready to ascend to heaven at any moment to really pay attention to Saihara’s cooing. “Whoa, hey, you’re actually—you’re really going to pass out—!” Kokichi yelped. “Um, uh, don’t spill your hot chocolate! Harukawa-san? Harukawa?”

“Bye-bye, Kawa-san!” Saihara chirped right as Harukawa face-planted onto the table. Kokichi cringed at the painful-sounding _“slam!”_. 

_“Shit!”_ He exclaimed and abruptly stood up, hands hovering uselessly over Harukawa’s unconscious form. “Fuck! She’s out! Uh, what do we do? Does, does she need to go to the hospital, or?”

Saihara continued eating his buns like a girl hadn’t just passed out in front of him.

_“Saihara!”_

“Hm?” He hummed, looking up. “What’s wrong, Ouma-kun?”

“What do you mean _‘_ _what’s wrong’?!”_ Kokichi snapped, his voice gaining a hysterical edge. “Harukawa just passed out! She could be dead! Move!” He awkwardly tried to shove himself over Saihara’s lap to get out of the booth. Finally managing to maneuver himself past Saihara, who had simply sat there unhelpfully, like a hindrance, Kokichi nervously shook Harukawa’s shoulders. “Uh? Hey! Wake up!”

“I don’t think Kawa-san’ll be waking up anytime soon,” Saihara said thoughtfully. “She looked really, _really_ out of it.” 

“W-What do we do?” Kokichi asked anxiously. “Fuck—what if she’s actually dead? Oh, wait— _thank God_ —there’s a pulse.”

Saihara continued surveying the scene like it was a mildly interesting drama. 

Desperately wracking his head for ideas, Kokichi asked, “Saihara, what did you do after you found me unconscious?”

“Oh!” Saihara’s eyes lit up. “Dragged Ouma-kun home ‘n dumped water all over him!”

_What the hell._ “Okay, what _else_ did you do?”

“Umm, put a wet, cold thingy on where Ouma-kun smacked his head... put him in a dark room... ‘n stuff.” Saihara mumbled, hand to his chin. “But! That was different! ‘Cos Ouma-kun had a concussion! I’m not _super_ sure what’s going on with Kawa-san…”

Kokichi bit his lip, shifting nervously. “What would be your best guess, though?”

Saihara hummed, tapping his fingers on his cheek. “Mmm... sensory overload!”

Thinking back to Harukawa’s previously shifty behavior, broken speech pattern, and uncharacteristic meekness, Kokichi concluded that sensory overload was most likely the problem. “Shit, we shouldn’t have forced her to come with us... Got any clue on how to help her?”

Saihara stared blankly at him and then refocused his attention onto his buns.

Kokichi sighed. _I guess his attention span ran out. Figures._ He looked back down at Harukawa’s slumped body. “We should probably take her to her home, huh? Except we don’t know her address...” 

“We could just leave Kawa-san here,” Saihara suggested.

“What— _No!”_ Kokichi bit out. “What the fuck—Why would you even say that?”

Saihara pouted. “Okaaay then... Oh! Gimme Kawa-san’s phone!”

“What are you going to do?” Kokichi asked, digging around in Harukawa’s bag and pulling out her sugary-pink phone. He handed it over to the Saihara, who then turned it on. The password screen blinked back at him. He hummed, sticking his tongue out in concentration, and tapped out a pattern. To Kokichi’s surprise, he managed to unlock the phone. 

“Whoa, how’d you figure out her passcode so quickly?” Kokichi asked, impressed.

Saihara tapped on Harukawa’s contacts list. “Ah, guessed it,” was all he said.

Kokichi doubted it was as simple as that, but didn’t bother prodding. He watched as the other boy initiated a call to a contact labelled “Mama” and jumped in surprise when Saihara shoved the phone into his face. 

“Seriously?” Kokichi mouthed right as the call connected. Saihara shrugged and made some elaborate hand gestures that Kokichi didn't have the energy to figure out.

“Oh, Maki-dear, what’s wrong?” Came the worried voice of a middle-aged woman. “Why haven’t you come home yet? Did you get lost again? Remember, take a _left,_ not a right.”

“Uh,” Kokichi said stiffly, “actually, this isn’t Harukawa. I’m a, um, friend? Of hers.” Saihara quietly giggled into his hands. Uncaring of how childish it was, Kokichi stuck his tongue out at him. Saihara also stuck his out. Now the two of them sort of looked like bizarre lizards tasting the air.

There was a soft gasp of obvious shock. “A—A _friend?_ I-Is that what you said?” And then, quieter, a bit more muffled, “Honey, did you hear that? I’m not hallucinating, am I?”

Kokichi was silently offended on Harukawa’s behalf. “Harukawa-san, you’re not... hallucinating. Anyways, we—I called because your daughter’s sort of, um, passed out right now...?”

“Oh, dear, not _again.”_

_Again? This has happened more than once?_

“You’re calling for her address to bring her home, aren’t you?” And, after telling Kokichi their address, “Oh, I’m _so_ very glad that Maki-dear has _finally_ made a friend! Honey, can you believe this? We’re _definitely_ celebrating tonight! How does a hotpot sound?”

"Harukawa-san—" Kokichi began, only to get cut off.

"We can go the new restaurant that's just opened near Mayflower! How about it, honey? Oh, I'm sure Maki-dear will love it, too! She can handle a few spices."

Sensing that Harukawa’s mother had likely forgotten about the ongoing phone call, Kokichi uttered a quick goodbye and quickly hung up. “Well, that was awkward,” he muttered, stashing the phone back into Harukawa’s bag.

“Ouma-kun did great! He was _super_ well-spoken!” Saihara reassured him. 

Kokichi mock-glared at him. “You were literally laughing at me.”

Saihara’s eyes turned as wide as an owl’s. He blinked innocently and cocked his head, as if to say “Who? _Me?”_

_“Yes,_ you,” Kokichi laughed. He slung Harukawa’s arm over his shoulders, stumbling a bit under the weight. Thankfully, she wasn’t too heavy. Kokichi could manage. “Saihara, hold her bag, will you? I can’t carry everything.”

“Okie dokie, Ouma-kun!” Saihara saluted and grabbed Harukawa's bag. 

“Ah,” Kokichi said, a little sad. “It’s too bad I only got to eat, like, one bite of my cake. It was pretty good—for a _Danganronpa_ cake, that is.”

Saihara quickly stuffed his last bean-paste bun into his mouth. He now closely resembled a chipmunk. “Aw, don’ worry Ouma-’un!” He said through a mouthful of bread. “We ‘an ba’e ano’er with ‘awa-shan, when she’sh awa’e!” He took a minute to quietly choke and swallow half of his bun. “I bet she’s uber good at baking!”

“You bet, huh? Then it must be true. Also, don’t talk with food in your mouth. You’re spraying crumbs on me and I can’t understand 90% of what you’re saying.” 

“Sorry, Ouma-kun!”

“ _Argh—!_ You did it again!”

“Whoopsies!”

_“Saihara!”_

The three of them—one unconscious, the other two laughing, carefree—stumbled out of the café. While lugging Harukawa around and snickering at whatever new, amusing thing Saihara had just said, Kokichi thought back to the load of cryptic bullshit Chabashira had dumped on him. 

_“The stars see a surprising, initially unwelcome, addition to a journey of yours…”_

Kokichi looked down at Harukawa’s ragdoll body, which was just barely hanging off of him.

_Motherfucker._

  
  



	6. Friendship!!! And stuff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Copious amounts of Ouma-kun loving!

**Kokichi**

really?

**Saihara☆**

wwhats up oumakun??

**Kokichi**

saihara

did you REALLY have to ditch me and leave me totally exposed to the wolves?

**Saihara☆**

kawasans parents arent wolves!!

also also

i left for an uber good reason!!!! >:O

**Kokichi**

oh yeah, what’s that?

better be good enough to explain diving into the bushes like an olympic swimmer.

**Saihara☆**

uhhhhhhh on second thought

**Kokichi**

i don’t know what i was expecting.

**Saihara☆**

besidesss

oumakun handled em like a total professional!!!

he was superb!! 

spectacular!!!

sensational!!!

**Kokichi**

…please stop

**Saihara☆**

he was like: 

harukawasan please collect ur daughters cold, dead corpse

shes heavy n even i, with my huuuge muscles, cant carry her foreverrr

**Kokichi**

i did NOT say that

**Saihara☆**

n i was like:

WAWOOOOOO

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Kokichi**

saihara, you can’t flatter your way out of this.

**Saihara☆**

:(

**Kokichi**

whatever

it’s not a big deal i guess.

**Saihara☆**

:/

**Kokichi**

?

what’s with that face

**Saihara☆**

:X

**Kokichi**

??

what

**Saihara☆**

:0

**Kokichi**

what do you want me to say?

i forgive you?

**Saihara☆**

:) 

**Kokichi**

so that’s what it was.

**Saihara☆**

oumakun oumakun

**Kokichi**

saihara saihara

what is it?

**Saihara☆**

lets go to my house tomorrow!!

we didnt get to go todayy 

**Kokichi**

it’s a plan

i have to do my homework now, bye.

**Saihara☆**

oh i gotta go set the neighbors child on fire byeee

**Kokichi**

WHAT

**Saihara☆**

just kidding!

i meant raccoon

**Kokichi**

that’s... still not good.

just

do your homework like a normal student?

**Saihara☆**

suddenly i cant read

**Kokichi**

pffft okay then

i really have to go now.

PLEASE do not set anything on fire.

**Saihara☆**

awwwww if oumakun says so….

bye bye!!!!

ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ

•••

Kokichi turned off his phone with a content sigh and turned to his homework. _Saihara’s as weird as ever._

Lugging Harukawa’s unconscious body for ten straight minutes hadn’t been a fun experience. Saihara hadn’t helped. He’d constantly gotten distracted by mundane, mildly interesting novelties—a nearby monarch butterfly, a particularly purple flower, a pigeon minding its own business. On more than one occasion, Kokichi had to chase down the blue-haired boy after he’d launched after the object of his attention. It hadn't helped that Kokichi had to tote Harukawa _with_ him. 

_Question ten: A hot air balloon hovers 340 meters above the surface of the earth and forms a perpendicular line... What the fuck. What does this even say. I hate word problems._

Harukawa... Kokichi hoped she was okay. Her complexion had been frighteningly pale. There had been a terrifying moment when she had momentarily stopped breathing—or so Kokichi had thought and panicked over until Saihara pointed out that Kokichi had been feeling her bag, not her body. Harukawa hadn’t woken up even after he had delivered her to her parents, who were pretty... eccentric individuals. They cooed over how _kind_ and _hard-working_ Kokichi was, and _oh! We’re simply_ **_ecstatic_ ** _that our Maki-dear has finally made a friend, especially with_ **_such_ ** _a handsome boy!_

Talk about awkward.

During the entire ordeal, Saihara had been giggling at Kokichi’s misfortune. While crouched in the bushes. Like a weirdo. 

There came a muted sound of shattering glass from downstairs. His foster parents were having _another_ fit. _What is it this time? Did Idiot A forget to buy eggs? Has Idiot B forgotten to turn off the closet light?_

Another crash.

Kokichi huffed, hiking up his shoulders. _It’s a wonder they haven’t run out of vases to destroy._ He attempted to focus on his homework.

_Question twelve: A diamond-shaped baseball field has its bases positioned directly on its vertices. Bisecting lines run through its angles... God, I really feel like murdering whoever came up with geometry._

Kokichi still wasn’t sure why Saihara had left him alone to face the wolves, although he suspected Saihara had some strange adversity against talking to adults. After all, he’d also forced Kokichi to talk to Harukawa’s parents in the café. 

_Whatever. I won’t prod him about it. It’s not my place. Don’t want to... scare him off, or something._

He’d like to maintain his friendship with Saihara, because while the other boy was amusingly eccentric and sometimes frustratingly cryptic, he was still fun to hang out with. He didn’t seem judgemental and was willing to accept Kokichi’s stunted social skills. Saihara’s presence was... nice to bask in. Sometimes it was like a whirlwind of a rollercoaster; other times, it was like a cool spring day. Exciting. Relaxing. Just, _nice._

Kokichi’s eyes wandered to his window sill, where the purple opalescent rock Saihara had given him lay. While it was currently nighttime, Kokichi knew that in daylight the rock would sparkle brilliantly, like a mini sun. Somehow, with his scattered memories and possible short-term memory, Saihara had remembered his promise to give Kokichi the rock. And wasn’t that just thoughtful of Saihara?

Saihara, with his tangled blue hair, pale skin, delicate features... His infectious laughter, beautiful smile... His bright, lively yellow eyes...

He was a stark contrast to the looming, bustling city Kokichi had moved to three months ago. Cities, he observed, were all the same. They were crowded with apathetic people stuck on their own petty problems, ignorant to the rest of the world. Compared to the reclusive, monotonous masses, Saihara was a refreshing outlier, one that Kokichi was thankful for.

_Having a friend is nice,_ Kokichi concluded. He sighed and propped his head against a hand. He still had homework to finish, unlike _somebody._

_Question fifteen: Identify the chords and secants..._

•••

_Having a friend is nice,_ Shuichi mused while staring out the kitchen window, tapping a rhythmless beat on the polished wood. The first rays of the sun filtered through the frost-embellished, ivory-framed window. _Like, uber nice! Better than nice! Great, in fact! Maybe I should look at a thesaurus._

_Nah._ Thesauruses were more trouble than they were worth. Also, the word “thesaurus” was funny. “Saur.” _Like a dinosaur! But it’s a book. Not a dinosaur. Hm._ The- _saur_ - _us._ Funny _._ It sounded funny—even looked funny—but the actual book itself was _not_ funny. That was a travesty. An honest tragedy! _It should be a_ **_real_ ** _dinosaur._

Shuichi remained where he was, gazing out of the window at the rising sun. There was a smashed pomegranate on the table in front of him from when he had attempted and failed to properly eat it. _Eating pomegranates is too hard! The skin’s too gross to chew!_ Red juice and shiny seeds oozed out of the decimated fruit. The opaque rays of sunshine shone on the scattered pomegranate seeds, making sparkles dance prettily against rich reds and deep pinks. It was a shame the seeds were a bloody magenta, instead of a nicer shade—say, _purple._

Shuichi made a mental note that he now hated pomegranates and that also if he ever saw one again he’d smash it just like this one. _Pomegranates are now banned! Forever! Forever and ever! Forev—_

He wasn’t really sure what he was doing in the kitchen, let alone at such an early time. Perhaps he had pulled another all-nighter just to over-analyze a hidden easter egg in the latest season of _Danganronpa_. Or maybe he had simply zoned out for an entire night again. _Who knows? Not me!_

He didn’t know a lot of things—a notion that he constantly sought to amend with impromptu investigations and a hyper-aware attention span.

With how it was quiet enough to be able to hear his own subdued breathing, the cluttered kitchen seemed as desolate as ever. In actuality, the entire house was akin to a living crypt—a cold, dusty grave occupied by a coffin of curdled isolation. The hallways muffled any sound; the ivory-framed windows distorted any light. Warmth and light were distorted into biting coldness that nipped at fingertips and permeated hearts. No matter how many shockingly bright, offensively neon toys and decorations he filled his grave with, everything came out as a dull, muted monochrome. 

The cold window panes, the great mahogany doors, the heavy brick walls—they all culminated into a thick, opaque membrane, a barrier separating the yellow sunshine of the outside from the empty blue desolation of the inside. It was a tomb, a catacomb, a mausoleum of wispy blues and deathly greys.

Shuichi didn’t notice any of this. He’d gotten sick of doing that, and thus had stopped long ago. 

_Danganronpa,_ he’d found, was an excellent thing to distract himself with. Ouma—wonderful, warm Ouma, the newest addition to his eclectic collection of favorite baubles—was just as pleasantly distracting.

Shuichi wasn’t really sure how’d his thoughts had cycled back to Ouma. One moment he’d been pondering the consequences of severing the hippocampus from the brain _—Total loss of the ability to formulate new memories! A complete disconnection from the emotional world!_ —and the next he’d been musing about Ouma. Lately, it seemed like his thoughts tended to do that—speculating about his new favorite person. 

Pretty, purple, warm Ouma was possibly the nicest person Shuichi ever had the fortune of meeting. He was naturally intelligent— _able to devise methods to solutions under pressure_ —and possessed a kind interior— _willingness to expend energy to help troublesome strangers_. He was sort of a mother hen—too kind for his own good. Kind, caring, _lonely_ Ouma was so, so _nice_ , if not a bit willfully oblivious—Shuichi had made sure. He’d tested it, throwing out increasingly barbed remarks that had been picked up but ultimately brushed off. Instead of being scorned, his odd antics had been _accepted_ by Ouma. 

There had been moments. Moments where he watched Ouma hesitate, clearly affected by the underlying connotations that saturated the situation. Moments where Ouma visibly brushed off his discomfort and unease in favor of smiling at Shuichi. That was nice. Really nice. Really, _really_ nice. 

It also wasn’t normal. 

Normal people would have been fed up by now. Normal people would have noticed the glaring red flags that followed Shuichi like a swarm of locusts. Normal people would have left the second they’d met Shuichi. He knew this from experience. 

_So,_ he concluded, _I’m super duper uber lucky that Ouma-kun’s not normal! Also, his hair is reaaally pretty. I wonder if he’ll let me put it into pigtails. Or buns! Like Sailor moon! Like dumpling buns! I want a dumpling._

By now, the sun had risen above the treeline. The birds were beginning their daily song and dance. They twirled about in the air, flitting from flower to flower, trilling out pretty notes and lovely tunes. The trees, swaying with the autumn breeze, were a myriad of reds and oranges and yellows and greens. The outside world was blanketed by a film of bright, lively sunshine. Even the thick ivory-framed windows couldn’t fully obscure that. They merely distorted it: a scene of yellow bliss warped by cold confinement.

Too distracted by daydreams about dumplings, Shuichi didn’t notice that he was now incredibly late for school.

•••

**Saihara☆**

_JPEG_ _— > sent _

cat of the day!!

**Kokichi**

saihara, that’s a rock.

good morning anyways.

**Saihara☆**

good morning!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Kokichi**

what’s got you so excited today?

**Saihara☆**

i getta talk to oumakun!! 

:D :D :D

**Kokichi**

a

oh

**Saihara☆**

also satosensei yelled at me for breaking the window

**Kokichi**

.....what

**Saihara☆**

it wasnt my fault she closed the window today!!

she usually keeps it opne

so i can come in

yknow??

**Kokichi**

no.... i don't know...

i still dont get why you dont enter your classroom like a normal person.

are you in trouble now?

**Saihara☆**

oh, oumakun

**Kokichi**

what?

**Saihara☆**

kawasan says hi by the way!!

**Kokichi**

oh!

tell her i also say hi and good morning.

is she feeling any better?

**Saihara☆**

she says she’s feeling peach!

**Kokichi**

....

like the fruit....?

**Saihara☆**

“peachyyy”???!!

???????

she still looks ready to pass out but i think thats just what she usually looks like

**Kokichi**

huh, ok...

well

tell her i’m glad she’s feeling better.

or i think she’s better?

**Saihara☆**

okie dokie!!!!!

**Kokichi**

class has started.

gotta go.

**Saihara☆**

NOBIDIDJDDHJKDKXXR@%#%

**Kokichi**

....i’ll talk to you during lunch?

**Saihara☆**

oh okay!

bye bye oumakun!!

**Kokichi**

bye saihara :)

•••

It was lunchtime. As swarms of students flooded the hallways, Kokichi stood, bento in hand, before the library entrance, currently debating a dilemma. _Should I go in...? I really don’t want to deal with Goth Girl_ _—_ _Chabashira, whatever_ _—and her incomprehensible bullshit._

He peeked around the door, eyeing the interior of the library. A huddled black mass with long pigtails could be spotted on the floor. _What if she makes some vague, threatening prophecy? Or worse: what if it actually comes true? What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? I’m not some Homeric Greek hero!_

He quietly contemplated his options in his head. _Option one: Enter the library and get verbally assaulted by a brain-washed lunatic about my impending death._ Or, _option two: Find somewhere else to eat._

Honestly, option two was looking pretty appealing. However, the feeling that Kokichi was being warded off from his favorite spot grated him. Chabashira probably wasn't even _trying_ to scare him off, so it would be pretty spineless of him to back off, right? Besides, like _hell_ he’d willingly give up his spot so easily. 

“What are you doing?” 

Kokichi jumped and whirled around, coming face to face to a pale-haired girl with piercing green eyes. Or, rather, _eye,_ as her other eye was obscured by her bangs. His eyes wandered to the red band on her arm. _Shit, it’s a council member._ “Are you aware of how suspicious you look?”

“Oh, uh,” Kokichi said because apparently he was socially inept, “I was just... about to enter the library! To eat my lunch.” He held up his bento with all the gusto of a detective whipping out the final decisive piece of evidence to conclude a thrilling murder mystery. 

The girl narrowed her eye. “Really.”

Kokichi, still stuck in his stupid pose while holding up his bento, began lightly sweating. “Yes, really...?”

“Well then,” she said, smoothing her unwrinkled, perfectly clean skirt for no apparent reason, “go on in, then. You shouldn’t linger around entrances, lest you inconvenience others.”

He politely refrained from pointing out that there wasn’t even anybody to inconvenience as most students tended to avoid the library like it was the fucking bubonic plague. Instead, Kokichi gave her a jerky nod and a strained smile before darting into the library. He chanced a glance behind him, sighing in relief when he saw that the girl had walked off. 

_Jeez, how does she give off such an intimidating and ominous aura? She acts like a cop. Are all student council members like that? Little future cops in highschool gakurans?_ He wouldn’t know, having only recently transferred into this school. _A school run by cops-in-the-making. That sounds like a nightmare._

He’d had... bad experiences with cops.

It was then that he tripped. Looking down revealed that he had, once again, tripped over gloomy-looking Chabashira and had scattered her tarot cards. 

“Ah, sorry!” He yelped a little too loudly and got shushed by the librarian in return. He bent down to gather up her cards. “I’m _really_ sorry. This is sort of becoming a bad habit, huh?” 

“Hello Fated One,” Chabashira droned while accepting her cards from Kokichi. She appeared to be unbothered. “The stars suspect this to not be the last.”

Kokichi took about three seconds to process her confusing wording. “Oh, well,” he said sheepishly, “I doubt it’s _that_ likely to trip over the same person more than two separate times.”

“You’d be surprised,” Chabashira intoned with an ominous tint to her voice, and then went back to staring at her cards.

As he could recognize when a conversation had been forcibly ended, Kokichi backed off and retreated to a nearby library table. He took out his lunch—personally made by him, of course, because his foster parents couldn’t be assed to take care of the child they’d basically bought—and turned his phone on. Just like he had expected, Saihara had blown up his phone screen with a barrage of frenzied, nonsensical messages.

“Oh jeez,” Kokichi muttered, squinting his eyes at the flood of notifications.

**Saihara☆**

oumakun oumakun

i didnt sleep thru lunch today!!

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

oumakun!!!!!!!

is oumakun alive???

if u died again i would be mega sad!!

think of all the pretty rocks i coulda showed u!!

they would be purple rocks!!!

purple!!!!!!!

ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!

oumakun

oumaaaaakun

oumaaaaaaaaakuuuuuuuuun

**Kokichi**

OKAY okay

i’m here saihara

stop spamming me

**Saihara☆**

yayayayay oumakuns alive!!!

**Kokichi**

of course i’m alive.

stop assuming i’m dead every time i don’t reply to your messages

okay?

**Saihara☆**

if oumakun says so!!

ummmm

**Kokichi**

what is it?

**Saihara☆**

kawasan wants to come with us today

she keeps hunting me down!!

i think satosensei is helping her find me 

hag!!!!!! >:O

**Kokichi**

oh, is it for that project you guys were talking about?

**Saihara☆**

project?

oh

ohhhh yeahhhhhh

**Kokichi**

....

you forgot, didn’t you?

**Saihara☆**

weheheheh,,,

**Kokichi**

she can come along.

you guys need to finish it anyways, right?

**Saihara☆**

yeah.....

okk.........

>:(

•••

Two figures, one tall, the other of medium height, waited at the Crossroads, next to the yellow stop signs and the red yield signs. Sunshine leaked through the wispy clouds that drifted across the sky as an autumn breeze blew by. The red and yellow trees rustled with the wind. Blue birds flitted about in the air, whistling sweet tunes.

Shuichi stared down the currently fidgeting anxious wreck in front of him. Harukawa nervously chanced glances at him while she gripped her umbrella with sweaty palms. Her eyes never stayed on his face for long. 

“S-So, Hat Boy,” Harukawa stuttered, eyes trained on something behind Shuichi, “the weather’s r-really nice today, h-huh?”

Shuichi stared harder.

Harukawa began lightly sweating.

Shuichi narrowed his eyes minisculely.

Harukawa began to vibrate from her barely concealed urge to bolt.

Shuichi leaned in closer to her increasingly pale face.

Harukawa looked ready to phase out of the mortal plane out of sheer fear.

Shuichi—

“Hey! Saihara, Harukawa!” Ouma ran up to the two, panting a little. “Sorry for being late! I hope I didn't keep you guys waiting for too long.”

“Ouma-kun!” Shuichi’s expression did a complete 180. A joyful smile etched itself across his face as he bounced up to Ouma, cheerfully hugging the boy. He squeezed him tightly. “Ouma-kun, Ouma-kun, Ouma-kun!”

Ouma, on his part, looked lightheaded. “W-Woah, hey Saihara...” He hesitantly wrapped his arms around Shuichi as his face turned a pretty shade of pink. He conspicuously stiffened when Shuichi began rubbing his cheek into his hair.

Out of the corner of Shuichi’s eye, Harukawa took a visible breath of pure relief, almost dropping her umbrella in the process. She practically melted into the concrete pavement like a boneless pile of nerves and insecurities. _Hehe, human slime! Slime! Slimy! Goopy?_

“Goopy Kawa-san,” Shuichi said, because he could. Ouma looked vaguely offended on Harukawa’s behalf.

Shuichi finally released the other boy—not because he wanted to, but because Ouma looked like he was going to log out of consciousness at any moment. As it turned out, hugging Ouma felt like hugging a bundle of warm, fuzzy happiness. _His hair is so fluffy!_ _So soft! So warm!_ Shuichi immediately resolved to hug Ouma at the next possible opportunity.

Said boy coughed awkwardly and focused his attention on Harukawa. “Hey, Harukawa, are you feeling any better?”

Harukawa let out a high-pitched squeak like she’d just been zapped with a taser and then nearly toppled over. _“Harukawa?!”_ She exclaimed, as if she had never heard her own surname before.

“Yeah...” Ouma said slowly, now looking a little concerned for both her physical and mental well-being. “That’s your name... right? Something wrong?”

Harukawa rapidly waved her hands in the air. “N-No! It’s nothing!”

“I’m pretty sure it’s _not_ nothing.” Ouma said, frowning, and then turned to Shuichi, who had been watching the exchange with a huge cheshire grin on his face. “Saihara, what’s she so amped about?”

Shuichi’s grin widened. _Funny._ “Oh, don’t’cha know?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you,” Ouma mumbled.

Shuichi clapped his hands together. _Funny, funny, funny!_ “Ouma-kun has this _lovely_ habit of referring to people without honorifics!”

“Oh.” Ouma said, his face returning to its previous pink shade and quickly encroaching on red. “Ohh. That’s what this is about.”

Harukawa made a noise resembling a dying mouse somewhere in the background. They both politely ignored her.

“I think it’s cute!” Shuichi offered, attempting to alleviate Ouma’s obvious spiritual pain.

_“C-Cute?!”_

Evidently, his attempt did not work. 

“Harukawa,” Ouma spluttered, then winced. “Harukawa _-san,_ ” he amended, “I’m so sorry, this, this is the second—third?—time this has ever happened.” He twirled his hair nervously as he continued babbling, “First Chabashira, now you... It looks like I’m starting a collection of bad habits, ahaha...” 

Harukawa finally snapped out of her nervous breakdown. “Oh! I, um, actually don’t m-mind all that much! If, if it makes it easier for you, you can keep calling m-me... Harukawa...” Her voice petered off into a strained whisper. She closed her eyes and angled her face upwards, to the skies, as if she was praying to some deity out there to levitate her to the heavens.

“Oh, no,” Ouma said, voice a pitch higher than usual. “I couldn’t possibly do _that!_ It’s, it’s rude, right?” Shuichi’s eyes followed the finger currently twisting purple strands of hair. 

_How cute!_ Shuichi internally cooed. _A nervous tic!_

“B-But, _really!_ I don’t mind at all! Honest! I just want you to feel a-at ease...”

“I mean, it was bad enough that I never asked Saihara if I could continue addressing him like that...”

“Please, don’t strain yourself on my b-behalf!”

Shuichi watched with quickly waning interest as the two volleyed back and forth, too polite and too stuck on societal norms to break out of their heated exchange. _Wow! I never knew people were so concerned about honorifics! Hehe, can't relate! I just don’t care. I don’t care about a lot of things._

“Plus, you’re a _girl_ —Not that it’s bad, or anything! It’s just, people might get _ideas_...”

“Oh, b-but I’m _sure_ they’d understand with some explaining! After all, people these days are _so_ understanding...”

Shuichi yawned. _I wonder how long this game’s gonna go on for. It was fun to watch at first, but now it’s just getting redundant._ “Ouma-kun,” he said slowly and loudly, “I am staring directly into the sun.”

“But, wouldn’t it be trou— _What?! Saihara, no!_ Don’t do that! It’s bad for your eyes!” Just as he’d expected, Ouma’s mother hen instincts overrode his anxiety-induced awkwardness. He clamped a hand over Shuichi’s eyes and quickly steered him to a nearby bench in the shade. 

Harukawa skittered after them. “Oh, gosh! That’s, that’s not good! I know a boy who w-went permanently blind after looking at the sun for, like, three seconds!”

Ouma’s eyes bugged out. “What?!” He squawked. “No—That’s ridiculous. That can’t happen. Can it?”

Face completely serious, Harukawa nodded frantically.

“Shit! Saihara, how long were you looking at the sun?!” Ouma cupped Shuichi’s face with both hands, leaning in and worriedly observing his eyes for any signs of blindness.

Shuichi, on the other hand, was in total bliss. He hummed contentedly, enjoying the warmth emanating from Ouma’s soft hands and his close proximity with the other boy. Purple, pretty, pleasant Ouma looked as wonderful as ever, even when his face was awash with white fear. _Pretty, pretty, pretty..._

“Saihara?!”

“Oh no! H-Hat Boy’s gone mute from blindness!”

“What the fuck? That can happen?”

“I, I don’t know! I'm not a doctor!”

“Jesus, fuck—Maybe he’s dehydrated? Harukawa, have you got any water? A water bottle?”

“Here!”

A glittery pink water bottle was shoved into Shuichi’s face, interrupting his euphoric session of Ouma-watching. He blinked at the sparkly bottle that was being jammed into his mouth.

“Saihara,” Ouma said, “drink! C’mon!” And then to Harukawa, “I don’t think he’s blind. Or, at least, not _that_ blind. He reacted to your water bottle.”

Harukawa looked contemplative. “That’s true! H-He could still be mute, though!”

“Mute? From looking at the sun for, like, five seconds?”

“I-It’s a possibility!” 

Ouma turned to look at Shuichi inquisitively. “Saihara, have you gone mute? Hey, say something!”

Shuichi attempted to garble something around the water bottle still jammed into his mouth. He ended up lightly choking on a mouthful of water. Apparently this was enough for Ouma, who released a sigh of relief. “See, Harukawa? Not mute. Thank god.”

Harukawa also heaved a great sigh. “O-Oh, that’s relieving!” She said, pressing a hand to her chest in an attempt to calm her rapidly beating heart. She twirled her umbrella, a kaleidoscope of pastel pinks and reds. “Being blind _and_ mute would have been quite dreadful!”

Ouma nodded, hair bobbing up and down with his head. He finally removed the water bottle from Shuichi’s mouth. “Tell me about it... Saihara, no more looking at the sun for you.”

“Aww,” Shuichi said, deflating slightly. He really liked looking at the sun! It was warm and bright and shiny and also hurt his eyes. Beneath the disappointment, there was a feeling of elation roiling within. It seemed that Ouma and Harukawa had forgotten about the whole honorifics-debacle and were now paying attention to Shuichi. _How wonderful! What a convenient turn of events!_

“What’re you looking so smug for?” Ouma asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Ouma-kun’s face looks especially beautiful today,” Shuichi said smoothly, effectively shutting him up.

Harukawa covered her mouth, eyes wide. “O-Oh my...”

Ouma coughed loudly, cheeks a rosy red. “L-Let’s just go to your house now, yeah?”

Shuichi cheered and danced around Ouma as they got up from the bench. “House time! House time!”

“I wonder what it’ll look like,” Harukawa mused, eyes shining. “With Hat Boy’s personality, it’s bound to look unique!” Then, upon realizing she’d managed to speak an entire sentence without any stuttering, beamed quietly at herself.

“Oh yeah,” Ouma said, nose wrinkling a bit at the memory of Shuichi’s house, “his decorations are pretty... colorful.” 

“Thanks Ouma-kun, Kawa-san!” Shuichi chirped. 

“Y-You’re welcome?”

“Wasn’t a compliment, but sure...”

Having friends was _so_ nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yeah, simone drew me a lovely piece of fan art on instagram!! im honored!!!  
> —> https://www.instagram.com/p/CAO-KIKD3Av/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link


	7. Shrimp Chips, Psychic Plants, and—Ice Cream!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the trio Does Stuff.

Kokichi’s idiotic foster parents prided in their decently sized housing complex—a luxury not many could afford in the overpopulated, crowded city. However, they also prided in various other trivial things, such as winning the neighborhood bakeoff or having a neater lawn than the neighbors, so obviously their opinion wasn’t very important. Anyways—The point was, no matter how much of an _“architectural masterpiece”_ his foster parents claimed their house to be (like the pretentious egotists they were), it paled in comparison to Saihara’s actual fucking _mansion_ of a house.

Clearly, Kokichi’s concussion had seriously fucked up his memory because he did _not_ remember Saihara’s house looking so ostentatiously, incredibly _huge._ Yeah, he had only caught a glimpse of the exterior when he was rushing out, but shouldn’t he have at least noticed that it was quite literally an honest-to-god _castle?_

The house—if it could still be called that—was a stark contrast to the neighboring homes around it. Instead of the modern, minimalistic design sported by the surrounding buildings, its dark design was reminiscent of a medieval castle, like that of the western countries. The house was composed of dark grey brick and the rooftops were tiled with nearly black stone. Its large, gaping windows were gilded with thick ivory and further obscured by curtains. The two uppermost windows almost looked like glaring eyes, like the house itself was an omniscient entity with malicious intentions. The building in its entirety loomed over the other houses, sticking out like a sore thumb while additionally sucking any warmth out of the air like a black hole. 

All in all, the house gave off a gloomy “totally-not-haunted-by-Victorian-ghosts-and-frozen-in-time” kind of vibe. Kokichi couldn’t even comprehend the idea of happy-go-lucky Saihara living in such a suffocating, oppressive place. 

“H-Hat Boy... are, are you sure we took the r-right turn getting here...?” Harukawa stuttered out, wide eyes glued to the monolith that was apparently a house. It seemed that she, too, could not believe what she was seeing. “I think w-we’ve maybe... accidentally arrived at a... museum? Or maybe it's a historical m-monument...?”

“That’s my house!” Saihara chirped, oblivious as ever. “Ta-da! The garden is, eh, _messy_ ‘cos the gardener ran off some time ago! Something about a body. I dunno! Sad.” 

_The garden? Why is he talking about the garden instead of the castle in front of him?!_

“I-It’s, uh... it’s very... unique,” Harukawa said, evidently unsure of what the hell to say in the face of the oppressive entity in front of her.

“Why is your house a European castle,” Kokichi asked point-blank. 

Saihara paused in his twirling, which he had begun doing upon arriving at his house. “Oh! That’s easy!” He suddenly shifted into an uptight pose, head lifted regally and voice unnaturally monotone. “Mother and Father are ‘eccentric beings with divine tastes.’” Immediately afterwards, he reverted back into his usual state so fluidly that Kokichi had to ask himself if he had just imagined the past few seconds. Saihara cocked his head to the side, hand on his chin. “Or at least, I think that’s what they told me to say! My memory is... Not! Good!”

While Kokichi squinted at him, Harukawa mumbled, “M-My parents are already pretty eccentric, so I can’t even _begin_ to imagine w-what yours must be like...”

Saihara beamed. “Thank you!”

Kokichi sighed. “I think you have a problem with recognising compliments from insults.”

“Oh no!” Harukawa squeaked, waving her hands in front of her as if that helped with matters. “I, I wasn’t insulting him!” Her expression was that of utter mortification, as if an insult was akin to committing mass genocide. 

“You basically called his parents bizarre weirdos,” Kokichi said.

“A-Ah... I guess I did...” She frantically bowed to Saihara, looking immensely defeated. “S-Sorry, Hat Boy!”

With his hand still on his chin, Saihara tilted his head even further. It was now almost perpendicular to the ground. “Whatcha apologizing for?”

“For calling your parents w-weirdos...?” Harukawa stammered.

“But it’s true?” Saihara said, voice lilted like he was asking a question.

“W-Well—! It’s still rude to i-insult people, let alone somebody’s parents!”

“Really? I insult everybody! Mostly in my head. Sometimes out loud!” A pause. “Oh! But I don't insult Ouma-kun! ‘Cos Ouma-kun’s great like that!”

“I, I suppose that’s true. Wait... Does that mean you insult me too...?”

“Of course! Kawa-san’s _very_ insult-able!”

“W-What?!”

“It’s an _achievement!_ Kawa-san should be proud!”

_“Huh?!”_

Kokichi sighed, again. He had a feeling that he was going to be doing that a lot today. “Can we just go inside now?”

•••

The inside of the house was just as messy as he remembered, perhaps even more so. The living room was still a mish-mosh of gaudy _Danganronpa_ merchandise carelessly strewn over elegant furniture. Kokichi glared at a particularly offensive Monokuma plushie hanging from the chandelier. Meanwhile, Harukawa _oohed_ and _aahed_ over Saihara’s oversized shelf of _Danganronpa_ shit as said boy preened next to it. 

“Wow! I can’t believe you have the limited edition 46th anniversary model!”

“I have the 38th, too!”

_“Wow!”_

There was an itch at Kokichi’s fingertips. It hadn’t been present the last time he’d been here, but he’d also been suffering from a concussion, so maybe that explained it. But, now that he was officially concussion-free and able to fully observe just how catastrophically cluttered Saihara’s house was, Kokichi _really wanted to clean this place._

It was just so... _depressingly, disastrously_ **_disorganized._ ** Stray papers littered the floor, plushies rested in various corners of the room, stop signs _—for some fucking reason—_ were piled next to the TV, neon paint splatters decorated the walls, glass shards blanketed a portion of the floor, evidently expensive furniture was knocked over and herded off to the side, there was a mound of _actual fucking_ **_dirt_ ** next to the door—

Kokichi was getting a headache just from being in here. 

“Ouma-kuuun,” Saihara sang, prancing over to where Kokichi was currently deep frying his brain, “want a snack?” He didn't wait for a response. Instead, he grabbed Kokichi’s sleeve and began dragging him to the kitchen, all the while chattering, “I didn’t know what snacks Ouma-kun liked, so I just bought one of everything in the convenience store! Snack! They're great! Great as snacks and great as meals!”

“I—Uh, yeah, a snack would be nice,” Kokichi said, blinking out of his angry mental tirade. He stumbled after Saihara, leaving Harukawa to loudly geek out over _Danganronpa._

To Kokichi’s horror, the kitchen was even more of a mess than the living room, which was a hellish surprise to his already traumatized eyes. The itch in his fingers increased tenfold. He took to tapping them against his leg to appease the irritating itch.

“Did you really buy one of everything? That’s... a lot of money. And snacks.” Kokichi muttered while he stared vacantly at the absolutely obliterated pomegranate that was practically melded with the kitchen table. He didn’t even bother asking what _that_ was about. 

“Mmm, yep! But! But! Guess what?” Saihara exclaimed enthusiastically, bouncing next to his newly re-erected cupboards.

“What?” Kokichi gazed at the cupboards warily. After seeing them on the ground, who knew how sturdy they were?

“Close! But, that’s not it!” Saihara said. He flung his cupboard doors open so forcefully that Kokichi briefly worried about them falling off their hinges. Again. Saihara then stuck his head inside the cupboard and subsequently became preoccupied with whatever was in there. 

“Um, okay, then what is it?”

Saihara stared at him blankly. “What is what?” 

Kokichi desperately wanted to smack his hand against his forehead. But, he couldn’t do that since it would be really rude and would also probably worsen his headache. Instead, he took a deep breath and asked in the calmest voice he could muster, “What was it that you wanted to tell me?”

“Ohh,” Saihara said, then began wildly waving a bag of shrimp chips around in the air, “I know what Ouma-kun's favorite kind of snacks are!”

“...Really.”

“Yep, yep, yep!” The bag of shrimp chips was shoved into Kokichi’s face. “It’s _salty!”_

“Oi, stop that—Okay, thanks,” Kokichi said as he hurriedly grabbed the shrimp chips before the bag could smack his face again. “Hey, you actually got it right! Uh, great job. I guess. How’d you know?”

Saihara ignored his question in favor of letting out a celebratory _“Whoop!”_ and then tried to run out of the kitchen. He was stopped by Kokichi’s hand on his shirt collar.

“Whoa—hey, Saihara, shouldn’t you get a snack for Harukawa too?” Kokichi eyed the other boy’s empty hands before adding, “And one for yourself.”

Saihara pouted, dismayed at the reminder of his other guest. “Oh... Okay...” He walked dejectedly back to the cupboards and grabbed two boxes of strawberry pocky.

The two made their way back to the living room where Harukawa was nervously standing next to the couch. Saihara tossed one of the boxes of pocky at her, which she caught with surprising deftness.

“O-Oh, strawberry pocky? My favorite! Thank you! A-And thank _goodness_ you two are back!” She fretted, wringing her hands. “I, I thought for a second that maybe I had s-suddenly teleported to a stranger’s house a-and that they were coming back at any second!”

“What the fuck?” was all Kokichi had to say to that.

Saihara gasped. “Kawa-san! We gotta get outta here!”

“W-What? Why?!”

“Didn’t you realize?” He gestured dramatically. “We suddenly teleported to a stranger’s house and they’re coming back at any second!”

Harukawa looked aghast. “O-Oh my goodness! One of my w-worst fears has come true!”

Fed up with the shitshow that was playing out in front of him, Kokichi lightly smacked the back of Saihara’s hatted head. “Harukawa, don’t fall for this guy’s bullshit. We’re still in Saihara’s house. He’s just messing with you.”

Saihara pouted at Kokichi. “Aww, Ouma-kun! Why’d you gotta spill the beans?” He flopped onto the couch, swatting a few plushies and pillows off and sullenly munching on a pocky stick.

“Ohh, w-what a relief,” Harukawa breathed out, untensing. “It would have been quite terrible t-to intrude on somebody’s private property—especially without their permission!”

Kokichi sighed. “It’s not—It’s not even physically possible to teleport. Why is this one of your worst fears?”

“Y-You never know! With today’s technological advancements—”

“Yeah, okay, that’s great. Are you guys going to start your project or what?”

At that, Saihara unleashed a moan of sheer despair, causing Harukawa to squeak in surprise and jump about a foot into the air. “Aww," he lamented, "I was hoping Ouma-kun forgot about that!” He shifted onto his back and threw an arm over his face, like an actress cast in a tragic Hollywood drama.

“Just me? What about Harukawa? She’s literally your project partner.” Kokichi began to rifle through his backpack for his homework. His teachers had apparently decided to gift him a nightmare-ish amount of homework for the weekend. _Gee, I just fucking_ **_love_ ** _highschool._

Saihara sighed melodramatically. “That’s ‘cos Kawa-san’s really, really easy to distract! But! Ouma-kun’s not. He’s too-o-o-o smart!” 

“Sometimes, I wish you were mute.”

_“Ouma_ -kun!”

Harukawa frowned and fidgeted self-consciously. “I-I’m not _that_ easy to distract... A-Am I?”

“Oh! Absolutely!”

“Mmm, sort of. Sorry.”

Harukawa looked deeply stricken. “It’s a unanimous agreement...!”

Saihara lifted his arm off his face to look at her. “I could talk about something totally, completely random and Kawa-san would latch on! Isn’t that funny?" He threw his arms into the air. "She’s like—Like a fish!"

“A—A fish?!” 

“Yep! Like a trout to lure! No! A salmon! No! A minnow!”

“A _minnow?!”_

“Yep!”

“I-I’m not even worth a single _trout..._ Reduced to minnow status... O-Oh, this is so, _so_ depressing...”

“Maybe a worm fits Kawa-san better!”

_“Oh,_ no longer a minnow but a _worm...!”_

“Harukawa,” Kokichi called out, glancing up from the neat stack that was his biology homework.

The girl in question jerked out of her reverie with a stuttered “Y-Yes?”

Kokichi stared at her. “You just got distracted again.”

“Aw, dang it!”

•••

After copious amounts of squabbling and self-pity, the two finally managed to start on their project. Well, maybe “start” was an overstatement. It was more like they _began_ to focus on their project, which was honestly an achievement. Predictably, as soon as they even began to _think_ about what they were going to do, a myriad of problems immediately cropped up. 

Harukawa had forgotten to bring a computer. Saihara had straight-up forgotten what a computer _was—_ or so he claimed. 

Harukawa couldn’t decide whether to make the slideshow on Google Slides or Powerpoint. Saihara decided that they should do neither and that they should instead make a sculpture out of dirt. 

Harukawa contemplated which topic they should present about. Saihara proposed that they present about Kokichi’s hair. 

Harukawa reminded him that their topic needed to be related to the Renaissance. Saihara claimed that Kokichi was even prettier than a Renaissance painting, and so should be counted as such. 

Harukawa argued that Sato-sensei probably wouldn’t accept this line of reasoning. Saihara argued that Sato-sensei was a demented hag that was also fifty years past her retirement.

Harukawa asserted that Sato-sensei was only thirty, and therefore _not_ a hag and nowhere close to retiring. Saihara declared that both Harukawa and Sato-sensei were delusional and possibly mentally deranged. 

Harukawa rushed to defend her and her teacher’s sanity. Saihara just started laughing at her. 

Meanwhile, Kokichi, having finished his biology homework, moved onto his English essay. 

_These two are truly fucked,_ he thought peacefully. He promptly snapped out of his self-imposed zen-like state when the two began re-enacting a _very_ loud game of tug-of-war with Harukawa’s pigtails. 

•••

**Saihara☆**

cat of the day!!

_png — > sent _

**Kokichi**

?

what is that?

**Saihara☆**

a cat!!!!

**Kokichi**

that’s

that’s a possum?

i didn’t even know we had possums here...

wait.

DON’T PET THE POSSUM

**Saihara☆**

ahahahaahahahahahaaaa

:D

too late

**Kokichi**

SAIHARA

**Saihara☆**

oumakun!

**Kokichi**

please tell me you haven’t touched the possum.

**Saihara☆**

dont worry oumakun!

itssss

very very fluffy!!

and bitey!

**Kokichi**

you’re going to get rabies and DIE

**Saihara☆**

a small sacrifice for 

~☆possum☆~

**Kokichi**

oh my god.

hold on i’m coming to get you.

**Saihara☆**

my hero!!!!

**Kokichi**

now is NOT the time

where the fuck are you

**Saihara☆**

im at the west wing!!

**Kokichi**

please don’t move or die while i get there.

**Saihara☆**

okie dokie oumakun!!! (^o^)/

•••

After Kokichi managed to find Saihara, he had to forcibly wrestle a spazzing, frothing sack of fur full of vengeful spite that was, presumably, a possum away from the boy. Kokichi was awarded with a few scratches and minor bites while Saihara got off scott-free, which was _completely_ unfair. Hell, the bristling ball of pure, unadulterated fury had been literally _latched onto Saihara’s head._ He should’ve at least gotten one or two scratches—not that Kokichi would have been too happy about _that._

Instead, all Saihara got were some photos he’d snapped of Kokichi during his epic one-sided beatdown with a furious black hole of noxious, fuming hatred. 

As the victor of the battle skittered off into a trashcan, Kokichi swore that if he died from rabies or an infection, he would haunt the living shit out of Saihara.

“I’ll minorly inconvenience your everyday life,” Kokichi warned while bandaging some scratch marks. Thank god he was paranoid and always brought a few bandages in his bag. _Why am I the one always getting hurt?_

“Like a potter-geese?” Saihara asked, completely unaffected by Kokichi’s obvious irritation. He was gleefully swiping through his spoils—a.k.a., the pictures of Kokichi getting his ass handed to him by an oversized rat.

“Poltergeist,” Kokichi corrected.

“Poltergeist!” Saihara cheered.

Kokichi huffed, reluctantly amused, and then hopped off of the bench he had been sitting on. He checked the bandages, quietly relieved that no blood was drawn. He was then startled out of his check-up when Saihara stuck his hand under Kokichi’s face and then began waving it around.

“Did you want something, Saihara?” Kokichi asked with a bemused smile. 

“Ouma-kun! Now that you’re here,” Saihara latched onto his arm, as if to ensure that Kokichi _stayed_ here, “let’s get ice cream!”

Ignoring his heart—which was currently having a seizure due to the current attachment to his arm—Kokichi considered the idea. “Hmm... I usually reserve Saturdays for homework and studying—” At this, Saihara made a comically disgusted face as if Kokichi had just said the two most abominable words in existence. “—but I guess I can take a day off. The curriculum’s so far surprisingly easy.”

Saihara nodded sagely. “Yes, yes, Ouma-kun’s a smarty-pants,” he said, patting Kokichi’s head and ignoring the other boy’s flustered squawk. “But, but—! Does he know how important _ice cream_ is?”

Kokichi pretended to contemplate the very serious topic that was ice cream. “No, I don’t. Do educate me, oh wise Saihara.”

Saihara grinned a megawatt smile. “I don’t know either!” And then he ran off into a random direction, leaving Kokichi behind.

Kokichi shook himself out of his dumbfounded stupor as he watched the rapidly shrinking silhouette of Saihara's figure retreat into the distance. “H-Hey, wait up! Do you even know where you’re going?!”

•••

Saihara, as it turned out, did _not_ know where he was going. Kokichi finally caught up to him in the city park, where the other boy was attempting to fiddle with his phone’s GPS to no avail. 

Apparently, Saihara also did not know how to operate a GPS.

After watching him tap random buttons and shake his phone—as if _that_ would help—for three minutes straight, Kokichi snatched it out of his hands and hurriedly located the nearest ice cream shop, an action made even more difficult due to a very grabby Saihara, who kept insisting, “Hey! Ouma-kun! I can totally do that! Ouma-kuuun!”

They were just about to set off to the ice cream shop when a familiar figure crossed their path. 

“O-Oh my, Ouma-san! Your face—it’s covered in bandages again!”

“Hey, Harukawa,” Kokichi greeted tiredly, acutely aware of how, upon seeing Harukawa, Saihara had instantly latched onto his arm _again,_ like a large leech. _Why is he doing that? Fuck, why do I like it so much—What am I thinking,_ **_aaargh—_ **

“What happened?” Harukawa asked, worriedly twirling her umbrella and simultaneously snapping Kokichi out of his mental breakdown. 

“Fought a po—“

“Ouma-kun _murdered_ a possum!” Saihara crowed.

_What._

Both Kokichi and Harukawa gaped in open-mouthed surprise. “Excuse me?! / M-M-Murdered?!”

Blissfully unaware of the two’s stupefied shock, Saihara eagerly nodded and steamrolled on. “Kawa-san shoulda seen it! I was getting _mega_ thrashed by a super duper _evil_ possum when Ouma-kun swooped in—"

“I’m not a fucking vulture! I don’t _swoop—"_

“—and went _KA-PLOW!!_ on the possum!”

_“K-Ka-plow?!_ H-Huh?” Harukawa yelped, looking increasingly distressed. And awed. But mostly just distressed.

Saihara nodded with so much gusto his hat nearly flipped off his head. “Yep, yep, yep! Ouma-kun was amazing! Superb! Heroic!”

“Please close your mouth and never open it again.” Kokichi moaned, face red.

“He was like—like—“

“A normal, sleep-deprived highschooler getting mauled by a fatass rat?”

“—like a pro wrestling champion!” Saihara finished with an exuberant cheer to the heavens, hands waving about in the air in a wild frenzy. He began to re-enact the fight, miming—something? _He looks like he’s mimicking karate? Why._

“A pro wrestling champion?” Harukawa repeated with an adoring shine in her eyes. She clasped her hands together and bounced on her feet. “I do _so_ admire wrestlers! They’re simply so strong! So admirable! Don’t you think so too? Ouma-san? Hat Boy?”

“Wait,” Kokichi said, priorities immediately shifting to this new, jarring revelation, “Harukawa, you... _like_ wrestling? You? Wrestling? _You?!”_

Even Saihara took a moment out of his physical re-enactment of Kokichi’s supposed valiant victory over the villainous possum to contribute to the conversation with a loud “Whaaat!” He then went back to miming the slashing of a lightsaber while making his own sound effects.

Harukawa turned a brilliant shade of flushed pink. “I-Is it really that weird...?” She mumbled quietly, tugging on her pigtails.

“Um,” Kokichi said, shoving a stray arm from Saihara as he got _really_ into his fake laser-blasting, “it’s just that... you...”

“Kawa-san doesn’t look like a wrestling fanatic!” Saihara chimed in.

“Don’t call her a _fanatic—!_ But, uh. Yeah.”

Harukawa blinked and looked down at her cute bow-topped shoes, stick-looking legs, lolita-style dress, delicate, skinny arms, pastel pink umbrella, glittery pink water bottle, sequin-covered purse, rhinestone-glitzed phone, small, frail hands adorned by a pink gemstone ring, and gleaming heart-shaped locket. “Really?”

“Totally!”

“No offense but... really.”

She deflated like a droopy balloon. “O-Oh...” 

Kokichi, spurred into action by how perilously upset Harukawa looked, quickly reassured her, “It’s just that you don’t fit the stereotype of the average fan. W-Which isn’t a bad thing—You’re breaking boundaries! Isn’t that, uh, exciting? Inspirational, even?” _Wow! That was a pile of steaming horse shit._

Harukawa seemed _very_ receptive to said pile of horse shit. “Y-You think so?” She asked, eyes welling up with happy tears—which was _not_ what Kokichi was aiming for, but _hey, close enough._ “A-Am I really so—so inspirational?” 

Kokichi nodded tentatively. Then, as an extra measure, he gave her a thumbs-up, which caused her to look like she was on the brink of entering a coma. Kokichi resolved to never do a thumbs-up again. 

Awed, Harukawa whispered quietly to herself, “Wow. M-Me! _Inspirational!”_

_Well,_ Kokichi thought, internally sighing in relief, _crisis averted. Woohoo._ He glanced at Saihara, who had been suspiciously well-behaved during Harukawa’s near meltdown. _He’d usually be gleefully encouraging her to have a breakdown... There’s no way he’d miss this chance to torment her._

As it turned out, the reason Saihara had been alarmingly absent from the conversation was that he was too preoccupied with staring at a— _is that a leaf? Really? A fucking leaf?_ “Hey, Saihara...” Kokichi asked hesitantly, “are you okay?”

“Ouma-kun!” Saihara suddenly shrieked. He ripped the leaf off the bush and gripped Kokichi’s shoulders with a frightening intensity. “I think this leaf is _psychic!”_

“...Huh.” Kokichi had officially given up on caring today. He could quite literally time the exact millisecond of his soul withering and escaping his body, heading off to the great beyonds, as Harukawa’s breakdown faded to background noise and Saihara continued brandishing a _fucking_ **_leaf_ ** like it had personally wronged his entire bloodline.

“Ouma-kuuun,” whined the current object of his ire. Saihara had apparently noticed how Kokichi’s eyes had glazed over into a trance-like state and evidently did not like that. “Do something!” The leaf was further shoved into Kokichi’s face. He could now inspect the utter mundanity of a plant, in all its leafy glory, in high-res as it threatened to impale his eye. _Brilliant._

“What do you want _me_ to do about that? _”_ Kokichi sighed and attempted to shove the offending plant away from his vulnerable eye. Once the leaf was successfully steered away, Saihara immediately thrust it at his other eye. Kokichi yelped and dodged. “Hey, hey—! Stop that! Do you have some sort of vendetta against my eyes?!”

Saihara paused mid-attack. “Ven-de-tta?” He asked, sounding out each syllable adorably, along with an equally adorable tilt to his head. _Why am I thirsting after the guy trying to blind me? What the hell..._

“It’s like a grudge,” Kokichi elaborated tiredly.

“Ohh,” Saihara murmured, tapped his cheek in deep thought, and then chirped “Nope! I like Ouma-kun’s eyes!” He then evolved to wildly waving the leaf in front of _both_ eyes. “Ouma-kun! This leaf! It offends me! Reading my mind without my permission—how terrible! It’s an—” He floundered a bit—“an act of _treason!_ Agreed?”

While dodging Saihara’s attempted assault on his vision, Kokichi could sense a budding headache steadily igniting itself, the infuriating boy in front of him further fueling the flames. “What the hell are you talking about? I’m pretty sure plants aren’t—They aren’t fucking psychic! Where are you even getting this from?”

Saihara made a sour face. He looked like he had just bitten a lemon after expecting it to be an apple. “Well! If they _were—”_

“They aren’t!”

“—it would still be treason, yes?”

_“Why_ are you even—No, you know what?” Kokichi then pushed aside his annoyance and took the time out of his day to debate the laws and ethics of _mind-reading, psychic plants._ “I don’t think the government has any laws against mind-reading. Also, I’m pretty sure the government doesn’t prosecute _plants.”_

“So...?”

“So, _no._ It would _not_ be treason.”

Saihara’s face soured even further. He now looked like he had just swallowed an entire lemon, peel and all. 

Looking at the other boy’s downtrodden expression, Kokichi finally caved. _Argh, why am I so weak to this guy’s sad puppy dog eyes?!_

“Hey, it’s okay,” he reassured awkwardly, not quite sure what to say. “I’m... sure that even if this single, specific leaf _was_ somehow... psychic... and managed to... read your mind, it couldn’t even do anything else.” 

Without thinking, Kokichi reached out and _—for some reason?—_ smoothed his hand over Saihara’s furrowed brows. “...Since, it’s like, a leaf.” He finished, his voice trailing off into a strained whisper as Saihara’s sour expression melted into careful blankness. He felt, in painful detail, his body slowly shutting down, step by step. _What the fuck am I doing?!_ His brain was currently going mental. _Why did I do that?!_ He could literally hear alarms going off in his head. **_Why_ ** _am I_ **_still_ ** _doing that?!_ He was pretty sure he had just lost all mobility over his limbs. **_What is wrong with me?!_ **

Internally, Kokichi was screaming while (imaginary) alarms shrieked in violent unity. The (imaginary) room he was currently lamenting his woeful life choices in was bathed in a flashing red, cast by the (imaginary) blaring alarms. Oh, and also, the room was on fire. (Imaginary fire, of course.)

Externally, Kokichi’s hand was still caressing Saihara’s forehead like a fucking _weirdo_ as his tomato-red face was frozen in blank smile. The other boy was _still_ staring blankly at him.

It was then that Saihara closed his eyes and leaned further into Kokichi’s hand, sighing contentedly. “Oh, this is nice.”

**_???_ **

Kokichi’s body finally snapped out of its self-induced paralysis and, like a printer that just had its print button spammed twenty times while it was lagging, kickstarted into a _massive_ overreaction. 

The following were all set off in a rapid-fire sequence: 

1) Kokichi ripped his hand off of Saihara’s forehead.

2) His hand knocked the Saihara’s hat clean off his head. 

3) Saihara squawked and lunged for his hat. 

4) His trajectory caused him to crash into Kokichi. 

5) Kokichi instantly lost his footing. 

6) The two toppled backwards.

7) They crashed onto the ground spectacularly.

The good news: Neither of them were particularly hurt as they had landed on something soft. 

The bad news: They had landed on Harukawa.

Harukawa groaned pitifully beneath the combined weight of Kokichi and Shuichi. Even with her umbrella covering half of her face, it was still obvious that she was dazed and _really_ out of it. 

“Crap!” Kokichi yelped and shot up. “I’m—We’re _so_ sorry—“ A hand on his head slammed him back on top of Harukawa. She groaned again, this time sounding a bit more pained.

The hand belonged to Saihara, who was panicking in an uncharacteristic manner. “My hat!” He wailed, looking genuinely distressed. 

Kokichi still had his face smushed into Harukawa’s chest. "Saihara, get your hand off of me—"

The hand did not move. Instead, Saihara was whipping his head to and fro, desperately looking for his hat. “O-Ouma-kun! Where’s my hat?!” 

Maybe Kokichi would have noticed how unnaturally frightened Saihara was if he also wasn’t _sitting on top of Kokichi._

“Um... c-can you guys please... g-get off of me...?” Harukawa mumbled, looking like she was on the verge of passing out again. It would probably not go well with her parents if they brought back her unconscious body for the second time in a row. 

“Oh! Here it is! All’s well!”

“That’s _great,_ now how about you get your fucking _body_ off—”

“Augh... Y-You guys are... really heavy...”

Saihara finally hopped off of Kokichi and danced around the two on the ground. “All’s well! All’s well! All’s well!” He chanted.

“Uh, I don’t think _all’s well_ with Harukawa,” Kokichi said as he pulled the girl up with him. She clung to his hand, wobbling precariously as if her legs had somehow morphed into jell-o. 

“T-Thanks,” she gasped, stumbled, and then righted herself. “I sort of couldn’t breathe back there…”

“Wh—Really? Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“But you guys were actually _r-really_ heavy...”

“I think you need to get your priorities sorted out.”

In a flash, Saihara was latched onto Kokichi’s arm for the _third_ time today. _Why am I keeping track of this—_

“Hey, hey,” Saihara chirped while Kokichi’s brain short-circuited, “we’re gonna get ice cream now, yes?”

Harukawa clapped her hands together. “Ice cream? How wonderful! I do _so_ love sweets!”

Saihara glanced at her disdainfully. “Oh, I guess Kawa-san can come too.”

“Oi,” Kokichi said, swatting at Saihara, who ducked and stuck his tongue out at him. “Be nice. Harukawa, don’t mind Saihara. Of course you can come with us.” He stuck his tongue back out Saihara in retaliation.

Eyes watering, Harukawa bounced on her heels and smiled happily. “S-So nice! You two are _such_ nice people! Oh!” She took out a lacy, pastel pink handkerchief and dabbed her eyes with it. _“So_ nice!” 

“Umm... okay,” Kokichi said awkwardly. He never knew how to deal with crying people. _How do you make them stop? Do you hug them? Knock them out?_ _People feel better when they’re unconscious, right?_

“GPS!” Saihara exclaimed, shoving his phone into Kokichi’s face.

Kokichi gently guided the wayward phone back to Saihara. “Yeah, okay, great. That’s the GPS. Thanks.”

Saihara looked immensely proud of himself. 

A thought struck Kokichi. “Oh yeah, what was the deal with that leaf?”

Harukawa scrunched her nose in confusion. “L-Leaf?”

“Yep,” Kokichi said. “Leaf. Saihara was going mental over a fucking _plant_ and calling it _psychic—”_

“That’s ‘cos it _is_ psychic!” The boy in question insisted. “It kept—It _moved_ whenever I thought about something! Isn’t that, like, super psychic?”

Harukawa looked like she was actually contemplating this, which would be _absurd_ because this was such a stupid topic.

“M-Moving whenever you thought about something...?" She murmured thoughtfully. "That... does seem rather suspicious.”

_Oh, nope, looks like she's buying into his bullshit once again._

Kokichi, on the other hand, was utterly done with this whole psychic conundrum. “Hey, have you guys ever heard of this _amazing_ concept called the _wind?_ Yeah, that thing that makes lightweight objects like, say, _leaves,_ move at random intervals?”

The two politely ignored him. 

“Oh, poor H-Hat Boy, terrorized by a psychic leaf! H-How terrible!” Harukawa gasped, anxiously threading her fingers through her hair. She had apparently managed to comb out the knots that Saihara had created when during his impromptu game of tug-of-war with her hair. 

There was a smug grin on Saihara’s face. “See?” He crowed to Kokichi who squinted at him. “Even Kawa-san agrees!” And then he turned to Harukawa. “I like you better now.”

Harukawa blinked, bewildered. “Ah, y-you’re... welcome?”

Kokichi lightly flicked Saihara’s cheek. “Okay, but Harukawa agrees with you on basically _everything.”_

“I-I do?”

“Nuh-uh!” Saihara pouted. “She agrees with Ouma-kun more!”

“R-Really?”

“That’s such a lie.”

“Is not! I _never_ lie to Ouma-kun!”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t start lying _now.”_

“Mweh—Fine! I _will_ never lie to Ouma-kun! Ta-da!”

“Oh, so you’ve lied to me in the past?”

_“No!”_

Upon seeing how Saihara’s pouting was reaching magnanimous levels, Kokichi finally relented. “Chill, I’m just messing with you,” he said, poking Saihara’s puffed out cheeks. 

Saihara gave him a sour look as Harukawa quietly stifled her giggles in the background.

Kokichi poked another cheek. “Let’s just get ice cream now, okay? I’m pretty sure we’ve been standing in the same spot for five minutes now.”

It was as if the words _ice cream_ reactivated Saihara’s happy mode. “Oh! Yes!” He cheered, bouncing up and down. He was still attached to Kokichi’s arm, though, so Kokichi was forced to bounce with him. “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream!”

Harukawa joined the chant, albeit more confused than excited. “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream?”

“Ice cream,” Kokichi contributed with the least amount of enthusiasm possible as he steadfastly ignored the smile etching itself across his face. 

The three meandered towards the nearest ice cream shop. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA they didn't even get ice cream. juked you with the title!!  
> also also also: one of my fav commentators drew me an absolutely gorgeous piece of fan art on tumblr: https://onehappyanon.tumblr.com/post/618846130716966912/did-i-make-an-account-just-to-send-someone-fanart  
> the details!! stunning!!! they captured so many teeny tidbits from chapter 2!!!!


	8. Heat Haze School Days: Part 1: Shuichi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new member joins the party! Sort of.

It was Monday morning and Shuichi was _bored._

_How dour! Devastating! Dreadful! Despair-inducing! Umm... dumb! Eh, something like that._

Boredom was a terrible, terrible status to be inflicted with—or, as Shuichi liked to put it: _the worstest, vilest, digustingest, nastiest disease, even—! Even worse than ischemic heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and tuberculosis and—_

And then he spent a good few minutes listing all the diseases he somehow and miraculously had catalogued over the years, as a teenage girl would list her favorite celebrities, only with a little more nasty imagery, and, y’know, _disease._ When he finally exhausted his inventory of the deadliest diseases known worldwide, he looped right back around to complaining about his current situation— _Actually, rephrase that more dramatically, with a touch of flare and pizazz—_ “ _bemoaning_ his current _predicament.”_ Oh yeah, that was good.

Boredom left time for one to contemplate about their past, present, and inevitable death. Ruminate about their troubling troubles and whatnot. Reflect on their past traumas that had been hastily obscured like stray ice cubes that had been kicked under the fridge. 

Boredom let one think _thoughts!_ Which was pretty sacrilegious to Shuichi, who hated thinking. Or, whatever _sacrilegious_ meant.

By now, he probably would have acted on some whimsical impulse and have made a scene. He would have probably made fun of someone important or thrown something fragile or broken something expensive—or would have just been a public menace, as the police liked to say. 

But the police had proven themselves to be generally incompetent and a major inconvenience, so why should Shuichi listen to what they prattle about? The police were _mean!_ They kept trying to place him under house arrest for stupid, trivial things like _“disturbance of the peace”_ and _“acts of arson”_ and _“being a hazard to the public”_ and _“releasing the animals in the zoo.”_

_..._

_Hey!_ Why should Shuichi get in trouble for trying to free the poor, starved, claustrophobic crocodiles?! 

...They might have actually been alligators. 

_Kawa-san’s making some funny faces. Then again, she’s always making funny faces. She’s also making some spastic movements. Is she okay? Oh, I really don’t care, though. She can act as spazzy as she wants! Hmm. She’s whispering something to me that I also don’t care about. Annoying. I wish she’d stop stealing my Ouma-kun away from me._

If Ouma was here right now, he’d probably scold Shuichi for deliberately ignoring Harukawa with a roll of his eyes. If Ouma was here right now, Shuichi wouldn’t be _bored._

_What was I thinking about? Umm... Nope, not that... Passed that already... Haven’t thought of that yet... Oh yeah—!_

By now, Shuichi would have made a scene. 

Buuuut—he can’t. 

Why? _‘Cos the principal’s a walking can of blubber! A tub of greasy lard! A sentient lump of poo! He’s mean! Strict! And also really, really bald!_

The principal Did Not Like Shuichi. 

He thought Shuichi was a troublemaker, a rowdy delinquent, and an omen of chaos. He didn’t like how Shuichi slacked off in class, or how he never did his homework, or how the teachers constantly filed complaints about his behavior, or how he kept breaking expensive school supplies, or how he encouraged riots to break out, or some other menial issue, yada yada yada. The principal would have greatly preferred for Shuichi to be expelled, or, even better—to have never existed at all. 

Alas, the principal could not act on his desires due to Shuichi’s untouchable status bestowed upon him by his impeccable exam scores that greatly boosted both the school’s image and district scores—but also mostly because of his parents’ _very_ generous monthly donations to the school. 

The principal did not like this. In fact, Shuichi would go so far as to say that the principal Did Not Like this. 

Of course, the man didn’t tell him any of this; it was simply incredibly obvious by how he always assumed an expression of pure constipation while simultaneously looking like he‘d just experienced chronic diarrhea whenever he spotted Shuichi.

Shuichi Did Not Like the principal because he was mean and strict and also bald. That was it.

Or, that _used_ to be it, before this dreadful, dour, devastating Monday morning. 

This Monday morning, the moment Shuichi had maneuvered his way through the window and slunk into his seat, he had been immediately snatched away and launched at the principal in his principal-y office. There, he’d sat down in an uncomfortably lavish and cushy chair before a grandiose oaken desk that was also before an even bigger uncomfortably lavish and cushy chair that seated the man of the hour, the warden of this prison— _the principal._ And then, of horrors of all horrors, he did the unspeakable—the most terrible crime in the history of terrible crimes; the principal had taken the extra step and crossed into absolutely irreparably unforgivable territory. 

Actually, it was more like he’d taken two steps. One step took the form of the confiscation of Shuichi’s phone, which was _totally unfair._ After Shuichi had attempted to chuck his phone at the principal’s bald, oh _so_ defenseless head, the man had arrested his phone and, serving as judge, jury, and executioner, threatened to keep it for the entire school day. 

Hmm, okay, maybe that hadn’t been _too_ unfair, but even still—! It was the thought that counted, or whatever those American Christmas movies preached about. 

Going against all the possible laws of physics and _secret_ laws of physics, the principal’s second move was somehow even viler, even more villainous—He had imposed some new, awful, stinky rule: If Saihara Shuichi gets sent to the principal’s office, he will be obligated to join a school-approved club. 

_What the heck!!!_

Now Shuichi was forced to actually turn in his homework instead of stashing it under his bed, stop inciting riots and mass panic, stop breaking school equipment, stop stealing school equipment, stop using his phone during class (no more spamming Ouma with pictures of cats!), stop terrorizing teachers with ominous and threatening messages pertaining to their greatest, darkest secrets, and _start paying attention in class._

_...Oops._

He quickly shifted out of his angry daydreaming to reality, where he came face to face to an even angrier Sato-sensei. Harukawa was quietly cringing next to him, as if _she_ was the one on the receiving end of an acidic glare. 

“Saihara-kun,” Sato-sensei practically growled like an aggravated wolverine with sharp, sharp teeth and claws, impatiently tapping her ruler on his desk, “I’ve been calling on you for an entire minute. Please. _Pay._ **_Attention.”_ **

Shuichi really wished he could do what he’d usually do in this scenario, which was to spontaneously slam his head onto his desk and pretend he’d just entered a coma on a whim. Unfortunately, with the principal’s stupid new rule in place, he couldn’t do that. His liberties and freedoms were being stripped away here! This should qualify as a national _crime!_

Instead, he had to abide by this unlawful, unreasonable rule and actually acknowledge Sato-sensei’s existence. The _horror!_

Shuichi blinked languidly at the fuming harpy-crone-hag in front of him. “Oh,” he said after a long period of non-action.

A heavy silence permeated the air, broken only by the rapidly accelerating tempo of Sato-sensei’s ruler tapping on Shuichi’s desk. All around him, his classmates shuffled restlessly—some uncomfortable, others eager. All were unable to tear their eyes away from the trainwreck they were witnessing unfold before their very eyes. Harukawa had slapped her hands over her eyes to save herself from such a terrible sight—a notion she was failing at as she couldn’t resist peeking through her fingers. He continued calmly gazing up at the darkening expression on Sato-sensei’s face, like a deer lazily watching a blaring car speed towards it.

Finally, Sato-sensei spoke. 

“I’m only granting you this one, final chance before I send you to the principal’s office,” she decreed gravely, not without an air of reluctance. “Pay _attention_ in class and _please_ answer this problem.” She pointed her ruler at the board, where some convoluted, unnecessarily long algebraic equation was scribbled. 

Shuichi squinted at it. Tilted his head. Tapped a finger to his chin. Then, with pure, unadulterated confidence, he proudly proclaimed “Four!”

Sato-sensei sighed tiredly. “Saihara-kun, at least _try_ before spouting some random answer.”

“But, I did try!” Shuichi pouted. “I tried really hard!” There was a brief moment of further silence. _“Super_ hard!” He tacked on when Sato-sensei continued looking skeptical.

“Saihara-kun,” the ugly wrinkly crone groaned, pinching the bridge of her ugly wrinkly nose, “you really can’t keep up this kind of behavior. Look—There’s no way you managed to somehow figure out how to solve this equation without any work, and all under _five seconds.”_

“Um,” piped up a soft-spoken voice from somewhere in front of Shuichi. “He did arrive at the correct solution, though...”

The voice belonged to an unassuming boy with long, shiny, black hair _—neatly combed, high maintenance, patient nature—_ and a medical mask that covered half of his face. He refused to meet Sato-sensei’s eyes and palpably wilted under the gazes of his classmates _—reluctance to meet eyes, rough voice, unfamiliar to talking, unused to attention, possibly uncomfortable around authoritarian figures—_ and was staring down at his notebook. 

_He looks like a hobo-hermit,_ Shuichi internally scoffed, then remembered that said hermit had just defended him, and immediately changed mental tracks _. A very_ **_splendid_ ** _hobo-hermit!_

“What did you say, Shinguji-kun?” Sato-sensei asked very, very slowly. 

Hermit Crab wilted even further. “Ah, his answer...” he mumbled into his mask, “It was... correct.” 

Disgruntled, Sato-sensei fumbled for her clipboard and flipped through some papers. She came to a sudden stop at what was probably the answer sheet. She stared at it for a long, long time.

Okay, well, actually not _that_ long. Still! It was long enough for Shuichi to get bored and start flinging paper balls at Harukawa—So, like, three seconds long. 

Sato-sensei was apparently so dumbfounded that she completely tuned out Harukawa’s quiet squeaks for help as the girl twisted around in her seat, trying to avoid the incoming projectiles. This was good, because Shuichi had a _lot_ of paper. 

“P-Please stop?!” Harukawa whisper-pleaded, sounding supremely unsure of her own words. She was sort of bad at dodging. It was more likely for her to move right into the trajectory of the projectiles rather than avoid them, regardless of how clumsily he threw them. Actually, on second thought, she was _really_ bad at dodging. 

A paper ball bounced off her nose. “H-Hat Boy! You’re _littering!”_

“I hate the environment,” Shuichi said brightly, then chucked another paper ball at her.

Before it could reach its target, Sato-sensei whacked it out of the air. “Saihara-kun, wh—what are you doing?!” 

He opened his mouth.

“Actually, no, don’t answer that.” 

He closed his mouth.

Sato-sensei sighed, adjusted her glasses, then cleared her throat. “Ah, yes, uh—” And here, she mumbled to herself a bit, lamenting something he couldn't care less about—“Your answer was actually... correct. I’m truly sorry for doubting you. Would you mind going up to the board and showing the class how you solved the equation?’

Shuichi didn’t even hesitate. “Yeah!”

“Yes, you mind, or yes, you’ll explain...?”

“Oh, you know,” he replied airily.

Sato-sensei looked ready to burst a blood vessel. Visibly seething, she turned away from him and instead targeted some other defenceless student. 

Shuichi watched her stalk away with an unsuppressed smug grin. She was in an especially bad mood today because she’d forgone her usual morning cup of coffee, evidenced by her twitchy fingers and the absence of her thermos. To add salt to the wound, she also had to sub in for their mathematics teacher, who, staying true to her long history of playing hooky, had skipped today’s class. By now, Sato-sensei was more their math teacher than the actual teacher. So, in short, Shuichi definitely wasn’t helping Sato-sensei’s rising blood pressure. 

Honestly, he didn’t really care that she had been so skeptical of him; he’d merely lucked out on it being an easily deductive mathematics question, instead of, say, a question on history. Additionally, he’d deviated from his usual persona, which was bound to provoke suspicions. _So it’s sorta my fault? But I don’t like thinking about that, so I simply... won’t think! Wow! What a concept!_

He was in the mood for more self-contained havoc. Surveying the floor for more ammo to bother Harukawa with revealed that the paper balls were nowhere to be seen—on the floor, that is. As it turned out, Harukawa had painstakingly picked up every single paper ball—probably for some silly reason like feeling guilty or wanting to protect the environment—and placed them all on her desk as she waited for an opening to throw them away. _Blegh._

While Sato-sensei desperately tried to convince the rest of the class to participate in answering some silly questions, Shuichi settled for apathetically watching Harukawa panic about getting out of her seat to toss away the paper balls. They were covering the majority of her desk and greatly hindering her learning process. She shifted anxiously and tugged on her pigtails, eyes darting from the paper on her desk to Sato-sensei’s back to the recycling bin at the front of the classroom. Apparently, she couldn’t decide whether or not to get up and possibly attract unwanted attention or simply sit there, with a desk covered in trash, like a total goob.

If Ouma were here, he’d definitely have helped her already. But he wasn’t here, and Shuichi wasn’t Ouma. Far from it, to be specific!

“I’ll help Kawa-san,” he said with a sweet, saccharine smile and, not bothering to wait for a response, gathered up all the paper balls, walked to one of the filing cabinets in the back of the classroom, and dumped them all in. _Woohoo! Ouma-kun’s definitely gonna be uber proud of my superbly charitable deed! Yeah!_

As Shuichi stealthily snuck back into his seat, Harukawa let out a noise that greatly resembled a seal high on helium. “N-No—! I mean, um, thank y-you? But, but, the recycling bin...” She floundered, torn between thanking him and chastising him for the new mess he’d just created. “I—W-Why the cabinet?”

“Oh, you know,” he replied airily. 

To be honest, it was pretty funny how distressed she looked, trying to solve the conundrum presented before her while having none of the pieces to the puzzle. If he could have, he would have snapped a picture and sent it to Ouma, but—nope! His phone was currently _imprisoned_ and there was _still_ the stupid rule set by the _stupider_ principal. 

_I’m going to break into his house and hide eggs everywhere,_ Shuichi decided venomously. _Then I’ll set up a walkie-talkie hidden in his room to listen to his gradual breakdown as he tries to find the source of the decaying smell. I'll even mail him a few fake advertisements about how the imaginary smell of rotten eggs is a primary sign of mental instability and insanity. Ha. Haha. He’s gonna get super duper paranoid! Serves him right! That bald can ‘o lard!_

Immensely satisfied with his plan, Shuichi enthusiastically applauded himself. Next to him, Harukawa looked at him, still confused out of her mind, before hesitantly joining in on the clapping. 

“Saihara-kun, Harukawa-san” Sato-sensei cut in wearily, “please refrain from making unnecessary noises in class. Settle down.”

While Harukawa stammered out an apology like her life depended on it, Shuichi slumped onto his desk, energy suddenly drained. 

He was bored.

•••

"I-I've never had someone to walk with d-down the school hallways!" Harukawa commentated brightly with a jubilant smile on her face. It was lunchtime, and right now the two of them were walking... somewhere? Shuichi hadn’t been paying attention to whatever she’d been rambling about. 

He hummed vaguely as he tried to subtly inch away from her, eyes fixed on a passing student's shiny Junko Enoshima keychain.

"I r-really must say," she continued, oblivious to how the other party was blatantly ignoring her, "w-walking with someone truly does change y-your perspective!"

"Yes sir!" Shuichi saluted when it became obvious that she was waiting for a response. He gleefully dangled his newly obtained Junko keychain up in the air, watching it sparkle under the fluorescent lights.

Harukawa glanced at him uncertainly before returning to her cheerful tangent. "I-I think having a walking companion is so m-much fun!" She clapped her hands together, eyes shining. "For one, I don't have to talk to m-myself anymore!"

"Uh-huh," he muttered, preoccupied with fishing for some napkins in his bag. He held them under a nearby hand sanitizer dispenser as they walked by.

"N-No more imaginary friends! I finally h-have a _real_ friend!" She sighed happily and leaned towards Shuichi, who in turn leaned as far away as possible from her. 

"Eh." He balled up the wad of soggy napkins and stuffed it into a distracted student's open backpack.

His companion didn't seem to notice this. "Oh, b-but not only do I have Hat Boy as a friend, I-I have Ouma-san!"

_"I_ have Ouma-kun!" Shuichi scowled, perking up at the mention of his favorite person and subsequently bristling at the sheer _audacity._

"O-Of course, Hat Boy."

"Not _you!"_

"...Of c-course, Hat B-Boy."

"This isn't a shared custody, okay."

"..."

Upon receiving no response, Shuichi huffed angrily and made to steal a cat-shaped pencil pouch from an open locker, only to be stopped when he heard an odd sniffling beside him. He glanced at Harukawa, who was acting really, really _weird,_ with her face in her hands and her shoulders shaking minutely. 

“Hey, hey, Kawa-san, watcha doin’?” Shuichi asked, curious. He’d already catalogued a myriad of the emotions he’d witnessed from her, which mainly consisted of anxious, super anxious, worried, intrigued, excited, and unconscious. None of her previous moods had ever resulted in her acting in this strange new manner.

Harukawa finally removed her face from her hands to look at him with teary eyes. “I-I-I’m so s-sorry! I, I didn’t want to—I d-didn’t mean t-to make y-you _mad!”_ She was openly sobbing, with big, fat tears cascading down her cheeks. “I-I’m s-sorry!”

Oh, so she was _sad._ Hmm, if he thought about it a little more, it was more like—she was scared of the repercussions she’d just fabricated in her silly mind, and that made her... weepy! So it was, like, fear-induced sadness! _Okay, but why the eye-leaky-thingy?_

“If Kawa-san’s scared, just scream!” Shuichi suggested, helpfully, as her sobs picked up pace. He began chanting over the sound of her crying. “Scream! Scream! Scream!”

“P-Please don’t h-hate me a-and, and please d-don't stop b-being my friend!” Harukawa wailed, burrowing her face into her hands again. It seemed like Shuichi’s chanting was not helping. Like, at all. Honestly, he was probably giving her a migraine. Or, or, or! He was most likely acting as the catalyst to her rapidly approaching overstimulation-induced blackout. Those two were pretty interchangeable. At any rate, Shuichi stopped chanting and settled for boredly waiting for the teary mess in front of him to shut up.

The students around them were beginning to stare, which was sort of annoying. Like, _mind your own business?! People can have meltdowns in public if they totally wanted to! Who do you people think you are?! Narcs!_

The surrounding _narcs_ probably wouldn’t do anything, since this was a private school ‘n all—the empathy rates here were subatomic. People just did their own thing, and, unless it directly affected others—like, say, a huge fiery explosion in the labs—nobody really cared. Such was the beauty of the rich. 

While Shuichi passively watched Harukawa imitate the Niagara Falls with just her eyes alone, he briefly considered his options. He could ditch her right here, leave her to be a nuisance by herself—but she’d probably go and snitch to Ouma, which would result in him getting mad at Shuichi for, like, five whole seconds. _Eugh._

Leaving Harukawa was an appealing choice, but the idea of Ouma getting mad at him was nauseating. _Repulsive,_ even. So, he was basically backed up in a corner. _Annoying._

Shuichi snatched a fancy-looking water bottle from some random passerby’s backpack and thrust it at Harukawa. “I won’t be mad at Kawa-san anymore if she drinks this and calms down!” He dangled it temptingly in front of her face. _First step, get them to shut up._

With shaky hands that could rival an old woman battling severe arthritis, she hesitantly accepted the bottle and, after much effort, managed to unscrew the cap and take a small sip. 

_Second step! Eh, how do the moms on television do this..._

“There, there, don’t cry,” Shuichi cooed as she sobbed into the water bottle. As an extra measure, he patted her head, but accidentally put too much force into his pats so they ended up more as light slaps. 

His clunky imitation appeared to be successful. “O-Oh,” Harukawa hiccupped, no longer full-on sobbing. She was looking at the water bottle with surprise. “This—Is this apple j-juice?” 

Shuichi had no idea. “Yep! Definitely! Got it juuust for Kawa-san!”

Harukawa’s eyes started welling up with even more tears, so maybe that hadn’t been the right thing to say. 

“Hey, stop that,” he frowned, a bit peeved. She had literally _just_ stopped crying, so why was she acting up _again?!_

_Why’re people such high-maintenance annoyances?! Maybe if I shake her really, really hard—like a maraca!—the tears’ll..._ **_fly_ ** _outta her eyes and she’ll run out of ammo and stop crying!_

“I-I’m sorry,” Harukawa choked out, looking up just as Shuichi was about to grab her shoulders to commence some hardcore shaking. He quickly hid his hands behind his back and shot her an innocent smile. “H-Hat Boy is just—just s-so thoughtful!”

Cool. Her opinion of him was changing for the better. Now, if only she’d stop the whole leaky-eyes-mess-thing... “Oh? Why’s Kawa-san crying then?”

“I’m n-not crying! I’m—I, uh, just r-really love a-apple j-juice!”

“Why’re Kawa-san’s eyes leaking then?”

“That’s—! That’s the a-apple juice!”

Shuichi observed her with minor fascination. She was obviously lying while also being absolutely _terrible_ at it. Why was she even bothering with trying to hide such an obvious thing? The tears were right on her face! In plain view! Wait—Ohhh! She was probably trying to save face! Maybe? He had no clue, which made him feel sorta ticked off. _Inexperienced at deception, unfailingly earnest attitude, overbearing need to please others—Conclusion: she's a goody two-shoes! Yu-cky!_

Said goody two-shoes simply sniffled pathetically in response, clutching the bottle with shaking fingers.

“Sooo...” Shuichi began, starting to become mildly bored as the sniffling died down, “is Kawa-san done? With whatever that was? The—the crying?”

“O- _Ohhh,”_ was the only warning he received before he suddenly had arms wrapped tightly around him and a head burrowed into his chest.

“I-I really a-am _so_ lucky to h-have such a k-kind, considerate, c-caring friend—!” Harukawa wailed into his uniform as she tightened her hold on him to an overwhelming degree and started up crying for the _third time today._

“Hurk,” Shuichi replied.

“W-What did I d-do to e-ever deserve y-you?!"

“Kawa-san’s surprisingly strong,” was what Shuichi would have said if he wasn’t currently having his bones shattered by a titanium-python-grip. 

“I-I truly am the l-luckiest person e-ever—!”

After what felt like ages, Harukawa finally relinquished her killer hold on him. Gasping for breath, Shuichu wobbled over to a wall, weakly leaning on it before pointing an accusatory finger at her.

"Don't ever do whatever that was again," he ordered.

Harukawa nodded enthusiastically. "N-No hugs, got it!"

"Huh? Huh? Hug? That was a hug?" Shuichi asked. He promptly ignored whatever her reply was in favor of mulling over the supposed "hug." 

_Are hugs supposed to be so tight and painful and restricting? Have I been hugging Ouma-kun wrong? Wait, re-think that in a more panicked tone: Have I been hugging Ouma-kun wrong?! Oh yeah, that's panicked enough. How terrible! I'll have to practice my hugs more. But how? With who? With Kawa-san, duh! She seems to have more experience with hugging than I do. Oh, but that means I gotta touch her more. Eugh. Oh no. Oh noooo—! Ohhh—oreos. Oreos start with the letter "O" in English. I haven't eaten an oreo in a while. Rescinded: I haven't eaten in a while. I'm hungry._

"Lunch time!" Shuichi cheered and whipped out a bento.

"Wha—H-Huh?" Harukawa stammered. "Where d-did you get that bento from? I thought y-you hadn't brought a-any lunch today...?"

She was right. Where _had_ he gotten this bento from? _Rewind, rewind, rewind..._ Oh, right, Shuichi had absentmindedly nabbed it from some pompous-looking student solely because he'd liked the pretty purple cloth the bento was bundled in. Although it _obviously_ paled in comparison, it had reminded him of Ouma's much prettier purple eyes.

"Ouma-kun is _so_ beautiful," Shuichi sighed wistfully, then watched as Harukawa tried and failed to connect his off-topic response to her question. 

Since it didn’t look like she had anything else to gripe about, he barreled on. "Let's eat!" 

"U-Um... are you just going to... e-eat in the hallway...?" Harukawa eyed his bento hesitantly.

Shuichi stared blankly at her. "Where else would I eat?" 

"The... the cafeteria? Maybe?"

"There's a cafeteria in this school?"

"I-Is there not supposed t-to be one?"

They stared at each other for several long seconds until Harukawa finally broke the silence. “W-Where did you think we w-were originally walking to…?” 

Shuichi decided to ignore that _obviously_ redundant question. “Show me the way, smarty-tarty!” He exclaimed, and, immediately afterwards, ran off in a random direction, leaving Harukawa to scramble after him with a panicked yelp. 

“W-Wait! The cafeteria’s in the o-opposite direction! _Hat Boy!”_

•••

“S-So,” Harukawa began hesitantly while currently sweating bullets and in the process of fusing with the cafeteria’s wooden chair. “Do y-you, uh, come h-here often?” At this, she cringed aggressively at her own comment and cowered further behind her cutesy-looking, pink-ridden lunch. 

Shuichi continued staring her down. He’d gotten about three bites into his lunch before declaring that he was full, then proceeded to dump the entire thing into the trash. Harukawa had made a strange keening noise, as if there was a faulty kazoo stuck in her throat, while she watched him toss the expensive and well-made bento box away. Now, he’d taken to staring at her with unblinking eyes out of pure curiosity about what she would do upon reaching her breaking point. _Would Kawa-san cry again? Or! Or, maybe she’ll explode! With confetti! Like a_ **_piñata!_ **

After it was made apparent that no piñata explosions were happening anytime soon, Shuichi decided to finally speak up. “Hey,” he said, immediately resulting in Harukawa jerking violently and smacking her hand into the table. “Oh, wow, what a reaction! Anyways. I’m curious about something! And! Y’know what? It’s up to Kawa-san to graciously educate me, yes?”

She perked up eagerly from where she’d been nursing her hand. “O-Oh, what is it that Hat Boy w-wishes to know about? I’ll try my best!”

“How typical.” _Jeez, can she get any more desperate?_ Yeah, actually, she could! Shuichi could totally bank on that. 

Harukawa’s nose scrunched up as she noticeably tried to decipher if Shuichi had just insulted her or something. After a few moments wherein she silently panicked over not understanding what he was insinuating while also desperately trying to devise an appropriate response, she stuttered out, “U-Um. What d-did you want to know... a-about…?” Her voice petered off into a faint, nearly imperceptible whisper.

“Whaaat? Can’t Kawa-san guess?” Shuichi puffed out his cheeks, putting on a face of disappointment.

“N-No—!” She clutched anxiously at her pigtails as she rushed to reassure him. “I-I can guess! It’s, it’s just that I don’t know if I’ll guess correctly since I’m not, like, psychic or anything _and_ _pleasedon’tbemadatme!”_

Shuichi watched her hyperventilate for a few more seconds before finally taking pity on her. “Well! It’s a good thing Kawa-san’s not psychic!”

“R-Really?”

“Yep! Remember my totally terrible time with that _awful_ psychic leaf?” He threw his hands into the air as he leaned back in his chair, balancing precariously on the back two legs. “Ouma-kun didn’t believe me. Terrible, right?”

Harukawa nodded, a bit jittery. “Y-Yeah! Terrible!”

“Don’t call Ouma-kun terrible,” Shuichi chastised her, then steamrolled over her squeaky apology. “Anyways!” The legs of his chair made a noisy _clack!_ as they hit the floor. “What was the deal with that _thing_ earlier?”

“Thing...?”

“Yes, yes! The _waterworks!”_

_“Waterworks?!”_

“Kawa-san’s eyes were leaking like crazy! Like, _wow!_ Kawa-san coulda filled a whole bucket with her tears! Pret-ty a-ma-zing!” Shuichi ended his tirade with a few happy claps just to really hit home his admiration for how efficiently she had weaponised her tears. 

“Uh, um, y-you mean my... crying...?” 

“The crying! Does Kawa-san do that often?” 

Harukawa continued to cower meekly behind her lunch. “I... I usually only e-ever cry when I’m alone...”

“How many times a month? Week? Day?” 

She recoiled a little at the barrage of questions, sinking further down into her seat. “I, um, ahhh? I d-don’t usually count how often I cry... S-Sorry!”

“Wooow, that often, huh? Where does Kawa-san even store all those tears?” Maybe she was some ultra-rare-tear-monster! Maybe her tears were _acidic! Oooh, that’d be cool!_ “Kawa-san,” Shuichi said absently, unknowingly speaking over her, “I need to bottle some tears, kay?”

_“H-Huh?!_ What for?”

“To test for acidity, duh! I’m gonna pour some on a goat and watch it melt!” He tried to subtly swipe a grape from her lunch. 

“Acidity? _Goat?!_ W-Wha—” Harukawa suddenly jerked to the side and covered her head with her hands when Shuichi lunged for the grape. It took her a while to untense and look up. “O-Oh, Hat Boy, if you wanted some of my lunch, y-you could’ve...” She trailed off when it became obvious that Shuichi had become fully engrossed in examining her grape. “Um, nevermind. Y-You can just take whatever you want. I’m... not very hungry.”

“Score!” He cheered, then popped the grape into his mouth. “That was what I was gonna do, anyways!” 

“U-Um, about my... _a-acidic_ tears...”

Was she still on that? Boring. New topic. Shuichi snatched a few more grapes, almost upending Harukawa’s bento in his vigor. “Hey, hey, where’d Kawa-san get these grapes?”

“Ah, I g-grew them in my garden...” She rubbed her hand and ducked her head bashfully. “Do you... like them?”

Instead of gracing her with an answer, Shuichi opted for slipping a single grape into his jacket's pocket. _For Ouma-kun,_ he thought, absolutely psyched for how _delighted_ Ouma would be when he received this mega special, uber delicious gift. He’d probably be so enormously grateful for this kind and thoughtful gift that he’d treasure this grape as a family heirloom, an artifact to be passed down for generations. Maybe he’d be so immeasurably, incredibly, immensely impressed that he’d invite Shuichi into his family! They’d get married! And then they’d live this grape! He’d fit the _Danganronpa_ audition plans into there... somewhere... _Okay! New life plan!!_

At that point his attention span wrenched itself from dreamy hypotheticals and back to reality, where Harukawa was looking at him questioningly as her confidence visibly depleted before his eyes. 

_Oh yeah! Kawa-san asked... something!_ Shuichi stuffed five grapes into his mouth before garbling out a “Yesh!”, then consequently choked a little. _Hopefully,_ he thought as he attempted to inhale two whole grapes at once, _that answers whatever she asked—Urgh, why are these grapes so ginormously huge!!_

Harukawa didn’t seem to take note of his brush with death via excessive grapes. In fact, she didn’t seem to be able to take note of _anything,_ with how dreamy and dopey and over the moon she looked. She had her hands clasped together, held up to her mouth as she vibrated silently out of sheer joy. Her eyes were big and glassy, like she was about to cry _again_ and _seriously_ where did this watery anomaly store all those tears?! Was her head just a huge jug for water? Then where did she put her brain? Shuichi was pretty sure people contained a lot more stuff than just some water and, like, one measly brain in their heads. _Oh yeah! The skull exists. Okay, so! The head contains three things: some water, a brain, and the skull! Mystery solved! Wait, what mystery? What am I even solving? Some calibration is needed..._

“Wow,” was what Shuichi ended up saying, voice a little hoarse from his near grape-death, because what was he even supposed to say to someone who looked drugged out of their mind? “Ha-ha, you look like you just inhaled a whole bag of cocaine” had been proven to be a pretty sub-par thing to say when that one random junkie had responded to his comment by attempting to rip his jugular out. 

“Eeeee,” Harukawa said, or at least, Shuichi’s pretty sure that’s what he heard. The sound was nigh inaudible, reminiscent of a dog whistle. “I-I’m _so_ happy that you enjoy my grapes!” She gushed, voice finally returning to a pitch more suitable for the human ear. “I’ve been g-gardening and harvesting my own fruits and veggies for y-years and I’ve never had the chance to share them w-with anybody other than my parents, b-but they didn’t even seem to _care,_ so now that you—”

_Uh oh._ Shuichi had accidentally activated her rambling mode. Well! At least she provided good background noise as his mind wandered. 

“—and, _gosh,_ the feeling of b-being appreciated and _acknowledged_ is j-just! Ah, I don’t even know where to begin! It’s like—”

Hmm, Shuichi _really_ didn’t feel up to going to class today. Next period was _philosophy_ class, which was just _eugh._

In truth, he felt sorta... sluggish. Was it because of the whole crying-debacle he’d had to endure two consecutive times? Or was it his almost-grape-induced death? Or was it the Ouma-withdrawals? He hadn’t gotten to talk to or see Ouma in a _century_ . Well, to be specific: fourteen hours and thirty-five minutes. _Yikes._ He was feeling chills. Or! Or maybe his sluggishness was because of that stupid rule! Paying attention? To teachers? In school? _Pure blasphemy!_

He had to find a way to skip class without provoking a visit to the warden—whoops, the _principal._

“—if y-you want! You just have to ask! L-Like, only once! I’ll, um, happily bring you any fruits or vegetables you want, because I have a lot and, and I’m always w-willing to share!”

Shuichi snapped back to the present. Why was Harukawa rambling about vegetables? _What a weird little health nut! Oh, but I’m definitely not going to say that to her face, ‘cos I need her for his totally masterful and bound-to-be-a-smash-hit plan! And also, she might start blasting tears at me again._

“—zucchinis, cucumbers, and m-melons! Oh! I think I’m also growing some strawberries—”

“I’m allergic to vegetables,” he announced, proceeding to ignore her perturbed noise of pure confusion. “Hey, hey, how’s Kawa-san’s hand feeling?” He opened his eyes real big and leaned across the table with gentle slowness, grasping the aforementioned hand with deliberate care. Softening his voice, he tilted his head and asked, “Smacked it super duper uber hard on the table earlier, yes? Doesn’t it hurt? Like, tons?” 

Harukawa’s face turned as red as the scrunchies holding up her pigtails. “H-H-Huh?! M-My hand? It—I s-suppose it h-hurts a little...?” Her eyes darted back and forth from Shuichi’s face to his hand clasped around hers as she practically melted into a puddle of bright red goo.

“Hurts enough to require a visit to the nurse’s office! Right? Right!”

“O-Oh, no, I-I don’t think—Um, it d-doesn’t deserve—”

_Hm._ More persuasion was needed.

“Nonsense! It could be sprained! Broken! Completely snapped!”

Her previously tomato red face quickly paled into a nauseated white. “C-Completely _snapped?!”_

Humming a vague noise of agreement, Shuichi applied just a teensy bit of pressure—just enough to make a sliver of the pain return—all the while locking Harukawa’s attention on his face by leaning in even closer. “Yep! Didja know? Sometimes, when the bones are snapped _clean through,_ the person doesn’t even notice! Well, that is, _at first.”_ The terrified white of her face slowly shifted to a distressed gray. “The pain comes in reaaal slow—” And here, just an eensy bit more pressure to her hand—”but! By the time the pain becomes noticeable, it’s already _too late.”_ Satisfied with the unmitigated horror etched across her face, he dropped her hand like it was a hot potato and leaned out of her personal space. “It would _totally_ suck if that happened to Kawa-san!” 

He observed her open mouth of utter terror and the onset anxious shivers and the ashy grayness of sheer fear. 

_Mission success!_

“O-On second thought...” Harukawa’s voice was a mere shadow of a whisper. “I-I think it’d be best f-for me to go... v-visit... the n-nurse...” She cradled her hand apprehensively, as if it were made of fragile glass that could shatter from a mere gust of wind. 

Shuichi shot her an encouraging smile. “Wow! What a brilliant idea! And, and, since I’m Kawa-san’s _friend,_ I’ll accompany her to the nurse! Y’know, as emotional support! And stuff!” 

“H-Huh? Y-You’d do that? For me?” She looked thunderstruck, and then got this teary look in her eye like she was going to begin bawling out of immense gratitude for this simple little favor. 

“Let’s go get Sato-sensei’s permission!” He jumped up excitedly, causing the legs of his chair to screech across the floor. “That way, next period’s teacher won’t think we’re doing something terribly terrible, like skipping class or something! Heh. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

Harukawa nodded, a grave look of utter seriousness on her face. “Y-You’re right!” With that, she began the arduous process of meticulously packing up her lunch with one hand only. Shuichi watched her struggle for a few moments. At the rate she was going, she wasn’t even going to finish packing up before lunch ended. _Ughhh, fine._ Huffing, he began to assist in her clean up, only because she was going at a glacial pace of colossal proportions and that was _mega_ boring to watch.

Once Harukawa’s bento was all neatly tied up and tucked away, Shuichi grabbed a hold of her wrist and, ignoring her startled squeak, dragged her out of the cafeteria. 

“A-Ah, Hat Boy!” She yelped, stumbling like a newborn deer. “Y-You’re walking too fast! Please s-slow down...?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Shuichi said flippantly with a wave of his hand. “But does Kawa-san know what’s even better than slowing down?” He didn’t bother waiting for her answer. “ _Speeding up!_ Let’s race! 3, 2, 1, go!” With that said, he broke into a run and immediately bowled into a gaggle of students. Okay, so, _maybe_ the crowded, claustrophobic school hallways weren’t exactly an ideal racing ground, but that wasn’t going to stop him! Bolstered with newly obtained motivation, Shuichi shook off the students he had crashed into, picked up speed, and smacked into a wall.

Harukawa skittered after him like a panicked hamster. “W-Wait! I don’t even know where we’re g-going!” 

Then it was a good thing Shuichi knew! They were currently headed towards the lesser used teachers’ lounge located near the stairwell. While most teachers tended to disregard it due to its inconvenient location, it was basically Sato-sensei’s home base. Being an ill-adjusted, relatively young adult, she was too self-conscious and constantly dead-tired to put up with the tedium of interacting with other teachers, and so naturally thrived off of isolation, sort of like an ancient cave-dweller. _Oh! Like one of those three wrinkly grey ladies in the Greek myths! What were they called? Oracles? Hags? Crones? Or maybe—_

Suddenly, something grasped Shuichi’s sleeve. He recoiled violently, whipping around to see—oh, it was just Harukawa. Plain ‘ol jittery, skittery Kawa-san. Despite his headstart, she’d managed to catch up to him, which wasn’t all too surprising considering how athletic she actually was. Upon closer inspection, she didn’t even look a _little_ worn out, which was pretty unfair compared to how dead he felt from that brief stint. 

They halted to a convenient stop right before the entrance to Sato-sensei’s lair. 

“H-Hat Boy, where are we g-going?” Her hand was still clutching his sleeve.

“To Sato-sensei, of course! Silly Kawa-san, I already said that!” Shuichi beamed, then stared pointedly at the hand currently touching him.

Harukawa didn’t notice. If anything, her grip on his sleeve tightened. _Why._ “But, um, do you even know w-where she spends her lunch? N-Not that I’m doubting y-you or a-anything!”

“Kawa-san,” he said, pointing at her hand, “Cooties.” 

As predicted, it was an explosive reaction. Harukawa’s face flitted through a catalogue of colors, changing from her normal pale skin tone to an even paler white before finally settling on a mortified shade of crimson red. While this spectacular color show was happening, she unleashed a high-pitched shriek and wrenched her hand away with such force and speed that Shuichi’s body followed in succession. He shrieked with her as he fell, because they were _friends_ and friends supported each other, or something like that. 

The sight that greeted Sato-sensei when she opened the door was a pile of two rumpled teenagers, one sporting an alarmingly red face, and the other screaming for no apparent reason. 

“What the _fu—_ What’s going on here?!” Sato-sensei’s face was contorted into a pinched grimace, like she was experiencing an aneurysm. “Why are you two on the floor? Stop _screaming,_ Saihara-kun!”

Shuichi stopped screaming—not because his teacher told him to, but because his throat was getting really, really sore. He looked up at her and gave her his most innocent smile. She didn’t look convinced. “Hiii, Sato-sensei! This is all totally Kawa-san’s fault, not mine, so please don’t send me to jail!”

Harukawa groaned pitifully beneath him. By now, she should have probably gotten used to this happening.

Sato-sensei let out a long, tired sigh. “If you’re talking about the principal’s office, I might just send you there unless you two get up and explain _what the hell is going on.”_

Well. There wasn’t any way to argue with _that,_ so Shuichi stood up hastily, not without a great deal of reluctance. He hated, hated, _hated_ obeying adults. They were so stuffy and stuck-up and and stinky and stupid—just like that wretched principal! Shuichi was going to have his revenge on that terrible tyrant, and it was going to be _glorious!_ He just needed to buy a few dozen cartons of eggs. Maybe even a chainsaw or two.

“—and that’s w-when we fell d-down. U-Um, please don’t blame Hat Boy! Er, S-Saihara-kun, I mean. It, it was all my f-fault, really!” Harukawa ended her anxious tangent with an imploring look at Sato-sensei, who palpably melted as her innate favoritism reared its head. 

“That certainly clears some things up,” Sato-sensei said slowly, voice gentle for the sake of Harukawa’s frayed nerves, “but it doesn’t explain why Saihara-kun is making such strangely violent gestures.”

At that, Shuichi paused in the middle of his imitation of revving up a chainsaw. They were both staring at him; Sato-sensei had an eyebrow raised as she waited for his response and Harukawa looked like she was going through a midlife crisis. 

“Oh,” he said, then mimed dropping his chainsaw and clapping his hands free of imaginary dirt. “There’s an explanation for that!”

“Which is…?”

“Kawa-san is gravely injured and set to die at any second.”

_“What?!”_ Sato-sensei and Harukawa both released horrified gasps at once. 

“Yep!” He pranced over to Harukawa and, ignoring her startled squeak, held up her hand high above his head with a grandiose flourish, as an Olympic champion would proudly present a first-place gold medal. “This! Hand!” He hoped he had picked up the right hand. “It’s super injured! Like, sprained and cracked and snapped—that kinda injured!” He could feel Harukawa start up her fear-fueled shivers. 

“Huh?” Sato-sensei peered cautiously at her hand. “Are you telling the truth? Because it looks fine to m—“

“We needa go to the nurse’s office before Kawa-san dies,” he cut in before she could get any more suspicious.

“P-P-Please s-sensei, I don’t w-want to _die,”_ Harukawa whimpered.

That sealed the deal. With another great heaving sigh, Sato-sensei, critically weak in the face of her favorite student’s distress, relented. “Alright, alright, you two have permission to go. I’ll alert next period’s teacher that you might miss class. Try not to dawdle, got it?”

Oh, he was definitely going to dawdle. “Yes sir!” He saluted, and before she could change her mind, he took off. 

Harukawa gaped after him. “U-Um,” she began, looking to Sato-sensei, “isn’t the nurse’s office...”

“In the opposite direction,” Sato-sensei finished wearily. “If your hand is as alright as it looks, I’d suggest you go after him.” 

Glancing at her hand, then at the direction Saihara had disappeared in, Harukawa made her decision. “H-Hat Boy, wait up!”

•••

They arrived at the nurse’s office right as the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. 

It had taken Harukawa quite a bit of time to locate Shuichi and persuade him that no, she wasn’t lying about where the nurse’s office was, and _no,_ she also wasn’t trying to kidnap him. And then they’d had to go down two floors and loop around the school because he had somehow ended up on the school roof of all places. At this point, even Harukawa, with her seemingly limitless stamina, was starting to look worn out. 

“H-Hat Boy, how did you even get to the roof? Isn’t it o-off limits?” She continued to needle about something Shuichi wasn’t listening to. “At this rate, we’re g-going to miss philosophy class...”

“How dreadful,” he said cheerfully, then promptly shoved her into the nurse’s office when it became apparent that she was perfectly content with standing before the entrance immobile, like a rock. 

Harukawa stumbled in and collided with a person’s chest. Luckily for her, it didn’t end in a repeat of earlier’s fiasco; they both stayed completely upright, only wobbling a little. 

“Oh, hello,” said the boy she had crashed into. He blinked down at her in mild interest, towering over her like a dark, ominous tree.

With an embarrassed yelp, Harukawa flung herself backwards and right into Shuichi, who had just walked in. The two shrieked in tandem and nearly collapsed into another heap, only saved by Shuichi gripping the doorframe in time. 

“Kawa- _san,”_ he whined, “stop doing that! My hands have made more contact with the floor than with Ouma-kun, and I think that’s a _crime!”_

“I-I’m sorry!” She scrambled off of him in record time. 

“A crime! Punishable by death!” 

_“D-Death?!”_

“No worries! Kawa-san can pay bail by bringing me more grapes!”

“Ah, um, a-alright... I-I can do that!”

“Wow,” said the boy, his tone completely placid. He hadn’t reacted or moved at all during the whole ordeal, remaining a stoic shadow at the corner of their eyes. “You two are quite a pair.”

“T-Thank you?” Harukawa stuttered out at the same time as Shuichi’s revelatory “You’re Hermit-Hobo!”

The boy from earlier in mathematics class—the one who had spoken up for Shuichi—a.k.a. Hermit-Hobo, responded by merely blinking and tilting his head. Or maybe he had said something—Shuichi didn’t know because he was too distracted by a horrified Harukawa assaulting him with high-pitched reprimands. 

“H-Hat Boy! That, that was a little rude... He’s our classmate! And he helped you earlier! Maybe you should be... nicer...? D-Don’t you think so...?” Despite her words, she looked a little unsure herself. 

Shuichi shrugged. “I don’t think! Besides—” And here, he gestured at Hermit-Hobo, who was still just standing there complacently—“he’s fine with it! Yeah! Definitely! I mean, look at his face!” He pointed right at Hermit-Hobo’s mask-covered nose, nearly poking his eye in the process. The guy didn’t even flinch at that. “It hasn’t even changed a _little!”_ As an extra measure, Shuichi waved a hand over Hermit-Hobo’s face. Nothing happened.

Faced with this complete non-reaction, Harukawa was at a loss. She floundered for a bit, stammering apologies on Shuichi’s behalf and looking increasingly like a fish-out-of-water when Hermit-Hobo didn’t even respond. Meanwhile, Shuichi had begun braiding Hermit-Hobo’s long, silky hair into a Kyoko Kirigiri-esque braid. The only problem was that he had no prior knowledge of braiding, so he was mostly just tying knots in the other boy’s hair. 

After a few moments of Harukawa barely articulating words and Shuichi royally destroying his hair, Hermit-Hobo finally spoke up. “Did you two come here for something?” Upon receiving two confused looks, he continued on in his monotonous voice, “Perhaps a consultation for an injury?”

“Kawa-san!” Shuichi exclaimed excitedly, then shook her vigorously. “The hand! The hand-bones!”

Harukawa jumped to attention at this. “O-Oh! Yes!” She waved her hand around in the air in a fit of hysteria. “I, I have an urgent injury I need the nurse t-to fix! I might _die!”_

Hermit-Hobo gracefully did not mention the fact that she had spent five minutes completely side-tracked from her so-called urgent injury, and instead said, “Alright then. Please sit on the patient recliner so I can check your hand.”

“H-Huh? But, where’s the nurse...?” Harukawa glanced around the room, perplexed, as if the nurse was going to pop up from one of the cabinets or materialize next to her. 

There was a brief pause as Shuichi watched Hobo-Hermit carefully compose his response in his head with meticulous precision. “Currently,” he started, tempo slow and volume low, “the nurse has an off-period. As the nurse’s aid, I fill in for him during these periods.” He gestured at the recliner in one, smooth motion. “Please sit now.” 

“Ah, o-okay!”

As Harukawa scurried over to the recliner and Hermit-Hobo began his inspection on her hand, Shuichi drifted over to the cabinets that were bound to be full of endlessly interesting new stuff he could totally mess with. Sure enough, cabinet number one revealed a whole stock of white gauze and medical masks and surgical gloves. Cabinet number two had more gloves and some weird-looking fluids. Cabinet number three was full of neatly lined syringes. _Hehe, so much stuff! Too bad they all smell sooo nasty! Bleck!_

“S-So, you’re allowed to skip philosophy class t-to help out a-at the nurse?” Harukawa asked with timid awe as she watched Hermit-Hobo gently inspect her hand. “H-How amazing!”

“I suppose,” was the answer she was graced with. 

She wilted at such a flacid response, curling in on herself like an armadillo. _Kawa-dillo,_ Shuichi thought absently as he filled surgical gloves with water. _Kawa-dillo, Kawa-dillo, Kawa-dillo!_ Then, just because he could, “Kawa-dillo!” 

“U-Um,” Harukawa glanced at him, face twisted in plain confusion, before screwing her eyes shut in an effort to gather up courage, “w-why do the teachers let y-you skip class? Y-Y-You don’t have to answer that if you d-don’t want to!” She added the last bit in a rushed, squeaky tone. 

Hermit-Hobo paused in his inspection as he took another moment to mentally compose a response. _Wow, is this guy self-conscious or what?_ _Or! Maybe he’s just really, really tedious. Or maybe both!_

While the other boy stewed in his own thoughts, Shuichi approached him from behind and held up one of the many water-filled gloves he’d made. Harukawa’s eyes widened comically and her mouth fell open when she connected the dots. Waving her hands with a frantic burst of energy, she narrowly avoided slapping Hermit-Hobo upside the head as she desperately mouthed _“No!!!”_

Shuichi considered this for a few seconds. Should he mercilessly attack a fellow student with water and latex for no discernible reason other than his ever-changing whimsy? Or should he be a decent person and _not_ do any of that? If Ouma was here, he would have restrained Shuichi already, then he would have launched into a long tirade about social etiquette and basic manners and whatnot. But Ouma _wasn’t_ here. 

The answer was obvious.

Right as the water-balloon-glove was about to be launched at a head of slightly tangled hair, Hermit-Hobo turned his head and looked up, locking eyes with Shuichi, who instantly froze mid-swing. A heavy, awkward silence swept through the atmosphere while other boy’s eyes traveled from Shuichi’s face to the bulbous, watery glove held high in his hand, then back to his face. Hermit-Hobo’s expression was unreadable. All the while, Harukawa watched on in complete despair, hands tugging viciously at her pigtails as she looked like she was undergoing a severe migraine. 

Seconds passed. 

Hermit-Hobo finally broke the silence. “Is there something wrong?” 

“Oh!” Shuichi quickly hid the glove behind his back, as if _that_ would do any good. “Nope! All’s well! In fact,” he took the glove back out and presented it proudly to Hermit-Hobo, “I made a gift! For Hobo!” The water-filled glove wobbled precariously in his hand and almost fell onto the floor. 

“A gift?” Hermit-Hobo asked as emotion finally showed on his face for the first time, like, _ever._ “For me...?” His eyes had widened just _so,_ and, even with his mask obscuring the bottom half of his face, Shuichi could tell that his jaw had dropped. 

“Yep! Just for Hobo-man!”

He continued regarding the wobbling glove with the wonderment of a father holding his first newborn child. “Truly? For me?”

“Yep!” Shuichi repeated.

After a long moment of hesitation, Hermit-Hobo accepted the glove with delicate fingers and held it gingery in his hands like it was a particularly jiggly egg. “Thank you,” he practically whispered, wonderment coloring his normally monotonous tone as he gazed at the wobbling water-balloon-glove resting in his hands.

Well, that went better than Shuichi had expected. “You’re welcome!” He beamed, non surreptitiously shoving the other gloves he’d prepped into a trash can. They made loud, watery thuds as they fell in. Hermit-Hobo didn’t seem to notice, still thoroughly engrossed with his new gift. 

Harukawa fidgeted awkwardly and squeaked out an “Um.” _Oh right, she exists._

Hermit-Hobo finally looked up, appearing a bit surprised to see her, as if he’d also momentarily forgotten she’d existed (it seemed like that was a special talent of Harukawa). He straightened up, cleared his throat, and ventured over to the sink to cautiously set the water-balloon-glove down with immense care. He then stood at the sink for a brief second, like a Sim that had glitched and gotten frozen in its spot. 

_What a funny guy!_ Shuichi thought brightly, watching Hermit-Hobo take his time with returning to an anxiously waiting Harukawa. _A simple gift got him so shaken up that he broke character! Fun-ny!_ He stabbed a couple more syringes into the chair he had been massacring the entire time. Destroying things was _fun!_

“To answer your earlier question—” Aaand he was back to sounding like he was reading off a script. “The teachers allow me to opt out of philosophy class as they consider me to be proficient enough in the subject. As such, I am able to assist the nurse in his absence.” 

Slightly shocked by the massive word vomit that had just been released, Harukawa recoiled backwards. “U-Uh, um,” she stammered, scrambling for words, “t-that’s... so... honorable! A-And, uh, amazing?”

Hermit-Hobo stared off into space, still delicately holding her hand, before blinking back into consciousness and saying, “Your hand has no discernible injuries, neither external nor internal.”

“H-Huh?”

“Your hand is fine.”

Harukawa’s face lit up with happy relief. She ripped her hand out of his and held it up, marveling at its apparent brilliance. “Oh! H-How wonderful! I was so t-terribly scared about dying!”

“If all your concerns have been settled, you two may now return to your cla—“

“Hey, hey!” Shuichi hastily inserted himself into the exchange with a screech of his syringe-covered chair. Although the legs of the chair hit Hermit-Hobo in the back, he barely reacted save for a calm turn of his head. “Check it out!” Shuichi preened, sliding the chair all over the tiled floor as it continuously unleashed ear splitting screeches. “Modern art!”

“A-Are those... syringes?” Harukawa’s face was pale at the mere sight of them. “W-Wait—! Hat Boy, isn’t that chair school p-property? Actually, aren’t the s-syringes also school property?!”

Hermit-Hobo stood up and regarded the mauled chair with deep contemplation. A copious amount of syringes stuck out of the cushion of the chair, making it seem reminiscent of a porcupine. “Hmm,” he murmured with a hand to his chin, “that certainly is quite the spectacle...”

“Mmm, totally!” _What the what? What’s this elitist even jabbering about?_ Regardless, Shuichi had been presented with an opportunity, and _of course_ he was going to take it. “Oh! Oh! I have a super duper _fantabulous_ idea for Mister Hobo—How about he takes his sweet time to compose a 500-hundred word essay about this contemporary _art piece?”_

This proposition apparently struck a chord within Hermit-Hobo. Nodding solemnly as utter concentration overtook his facial expression, he leaned down to further scrutinize the monstrosity before him. Behind the boy, Harukawa was staring at the chair with abject horror.

Now that the return to the hellhole that was philosophy class has been deftly avoided, Shuichi now had more time to muck around. The only question was: how was he supposed to kill time? He’d already thoroughly trashed the cabinets, the chairs, and the sink (he’d piled a mountain of tissues in there). _Hmm._ Looking at Harukawa granted him no new insight; she was simply sitting there, still wholly absorbed in looking horrified about the chair. 

Was this boredom truly any better than philosophy class? He then recalled the principal’s irritating rule about _paying attention_ in class, and he concluded that _yeah,_ this was infinitely better. 

Well! Since the nurse’s office had been completely exhausted of its interesting tidbits, the only place to look for entertainment was _outside_ the office. 

“Kawa-saaan,” he sing-songed, drifting over to her and pulling her off of the recliner. 

Harukawa let out a yelp as she stumbled into the chair. “Y-Yes? What is it, Hat Boy?”

He gave her his most carefree, joyous grin. “Let’s go explore the school! Like real adventurers, yes?”

“But, but—W-What about class...?”

“Oh, it’s just philosophy,” he scoffed, skipping over to the door. “Just read the textbook once and boom! Kawa-san’s all set for the exams!”

“I... I don’t think it works like that...”

He pouted. “Weh, what a bore.” His expression then cleared up when he was struck with an idea. “Hobo-man! Hermit! Miss Emo!” He waved a hand over Hermit-Hobo’s face, unfortunately producing no reaction. Seemed like he was just _that_ immersed with critiquing a chair. “Missus Hobo-man!”

“H-Hat Boy, I don’t think it’s very polite of you to call him such na—”

“Missus Mister Emo Hobo-man!” Still no reaction. _Geez! This guy’s a total vegetable!_

With that thought in mind, Shuichi announced “Maraca time!” and began aggressively shaking Hermit-Hobo by his shoulders with the force of a temperamental toddler to a ragdoll. _This_ finally snapped the boy out of his reverie. 

“Oh, yes?” He looked up at Shuichi with utter ambivalence as he was still being rocked back-and-forth at high speeds. “What seems to be the issue?”

“Hobo!” Shuichi said cheerily, relinquishing his grasp on the other boy’s shoulders, “wanna ditch this boring little closet and become adventurers with me ‘n Kawa-san?”

“U-Um, uh, I don’t think he’ll just a-abandon his wor—”

“Alright,” Hermit-Hobo said without hesitation.

_Success!_

“Yaaay!” Shuichu cheered, throwing his arms around the boy and then immediately shot away from him because _what the heck? This guy is an ice-cold statue! Cold, cold, cold! Totally not fun to hug at all!_ Quickly recovering from his recoil, Shuichi gave Hermit-Hobo—who looked uncharacteristically shaken—a carefree smile and a once-over. _Slightly gloomy disposition, level headed personality, aversion to flashy histrionics..._

“Hobo can be ‘The Lesser Ouma-kun’!” Shuichi chirped, awed by his own genius.

_“What?!”_ Harukawa gave a start at this. “H-Hat Boy—! Will he really be fine with th—”

“Alright,” the Lesser Ouma said without hesitation.

“But, but—!” At a complete loss, she scrambled for an argument, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

_Looks like Kawa-san needs some reassurance. Geez, I expected her to be a lot more of a pushover._ “Aw, don’t be such a downer, Kawa-san! Just look at this guy! He’s got Ouma-kun’s naturally impassive face and responsible attitude! Eh, yeah, other than those he basically possesses no other remarkable traits—but!” Okay, maybe he should have kept that part to himself. “And! And besides—” Here, he gave a light pat to the top of her head as the cherry on top—”the Lesser Ouma-kun has already agreed!” He punctuated his surely to be an impressively persuasive masterpiece with a flourish of the arm at the Lesser Ouma, who, through Shuichi’s entire tirade, had been standing off to the side with a dead fish-eyed look on his face.

Harukawa looked from Shuichi’s hopeful expression to the Lesser Ouma’s dead-to-the-world’s blank gaze. Then, submitting to the throes of peer pressure and pack mentality, she finally acquiesced with a meek “O-Okay… if he’s really f-fine with this…”

Shuichi nodded with the confidence of someone delivering the truth and nothing but the truth. “‘Course he is! Lesser Ouma-kun, tell Kawa-san you’re fine!”

“I’m fine,” he said, looking more than a little brain dead.

This seemed to win Harukawa over. “W-Well then… It’s nice to m-meet you, ah, Lesser Ouma-san!” She gave a customary, mildly wobbly bow. “M-My name is Harukawa Maki!” She was sweating bullets, obviously under a fair bit of mental stress from the sheer concept of introducing herself to a near stranger. 

“And I’m Saihara Shuichi!” He chimed in enthusiastically. Then he attached himself to the arm of the other boy, as he usually would to Ouma, and immediately shivered a bit from just how much of a popsicle his arm felt like. But! Shuichi would persevere! He just needed to warm up this cold, dead limb and get used to it and _then_ Hermit-Hobo could be considered a proper lesser Ouma! 

The Lesser Ouma gave both of them a curt nod. “It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintances. My name is Shinguji Korekiyo.”

There were two wildly different reactions to this.

The first: “Lesser Ouma-kun’s name _was_ Shinguji Korekiyo! Submit to his new fate!”

The second: “E-Eh?! T-The Lesser Ouma-san h-has a _real name?!”_

“Alright then.” The Lesser Ouma agreed smoothly, adjusting his new identity with admirable ease. _Kawa-san could learn a thing or two from this guy!_

“Okay, okay!” Shuichi clapped his hands, an action made a bit difficult due to his current status as the Lesser Ouma’s new arm tumor. “Introductions: over! Let’s go adventuring!” He shot out the door, dragging the other boy with him as he followed with all the excitement of a barely sentient stick. As per routine, Harukawa flitted after them. 

“I haven’t delivered my 500-hundred word essay on your art piece yet,” the Lesser Ouma said faintly as Shuichi basically dragged him across the school.

“Oh! Lesser Ouma-kun can deliver it while we explore, kay?”

“P-Please wait!” Harukawa skittered to Shuichi’s side and latched onto his arm, causing him to skid to a full-stop and stare, wide-eyed. 

_?!_

Red blossomed in her cheeks as she lowered her gaze to the floor. “U-Um, Hat Boy’s always running off... so... isn’t it j-just easier this way?” 

Well, he couldn’t argue with logic like _that._ Plus! Harukawa was like a walking heated water bottle—a bit too squishy for his liking but comfortably warm compared to the human-shaped ice cube by his side. So, he’d let her have this victory.

“Okay!” He cheered, took one step forward, tripped, and immediately crashed to the ground, his human baggage accompanying him on the way down. 

He totally blamed Harukawa for this.

“I really must say,” said the Lesser Ouma, voice somewhat muffled due to that fact that his face was currently squished to the ground, “I’ve never gone on an adventure before, but I think this is off to a spectacular start.”

  
  


Harukawa groaned, pained, from her customary spot at the bottom of the pile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to onehappyanon for motivating me and just being a heaven-sent angel in general!!!!! mwah mwah


	9. Heat Haze School Days: Part 2: Kokichi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A challenger approaches!

It was Monday morning and Kokichi was, to say the very least, _concerned._

He frowned down at his phone. 

_Zero new notifications._

That was... weird. Usually, Saihara would be spamming his phone with eclectic texts and pictures of non-cat things. Even weirder, when Kokichi had finally mustered up the courage to send the first text (a jarring break from the status quo), Saihara didn’t respond to any of his texts—a perplexing deviation from his usually enthusiastic, instant replies—which truly spoke volumes of how supremely _weird_ this whole situation was. It was all so immensely distressing and incredibly concerning and _god,_ Kokichi could just _feel_ his paranoia slowly sink its claws into him as it mounted in size like an approaching tsunami. 

**Kokichi**

are you okay?

No reply.

Should he send another text? That wouldn’t come off as overbearing or clingy or anything, right? If so, it would just be Kokichi’s luck to scare off one of his only friends after only a week of knowing each other, and _damn,_ didn’t that concept make his stomach drop harder than an atomic bomb?

Even if he were to gather up the dwindling dregs of his confidence to send a second text, what would he even _say?_ “Hey, are you dying a horribly brutal death in some rank alleyway, or are you just ignoring me?” Kokichi was pretty sure normal friends didn’t send those kinds of texts, but then again, Saihara wasn’t exactly normal was he? 

Or, maybe he was just overthinking things again like the unreasonably paranoid mess he was, and Saihara had simply forgotten to charge his phone or some other careless, in-character thing. Maybe.

At this thought, Kokichi managed to wave off the worst of his worries and finally stopped spastically tapping his finger, and _just_ _when had he started doing that?_

_Great, add that to my ever-growing list of issues._

But whatever, Saihara was fine, Kokichi was fine, their friendship was totally, definitely _fine,_ _everything_ was **_fine._**

That moment of self-reassurance lasted for about three seconds before his paranoia returned with a vengeance and smacked him upside the head with a frying pan.

_“Argh!”_ He grabbed at his hair, ruffling his already ruffled bedhead, and glared down at his phone with such potent ferocity that nearby students hesitantly shuffled away. Or it was because he’d just growled like a feral dog. 

Why did he have to choose such an infuriating enigma of a person to care about? Why couldn’t have chosen someone else—someone more muted, plainer, more of background character, like him? Kokichi had come to this god-forsaken city with a foolproof plan—keep his head down, stay on his best behavior, avoid annoying foster parents, avoid annoying friendships, avoid annoying _attachments_ —and _of course_ everything had gone to hell within the first month. All because of his usual rotten luck. 

As he walked down the crowded hallways of his school, eyes still glued to his phone, he couldn’t help but let his worries continue to spiral out of control. _Is there something wrong with Saihara? Did he get to school safely? Is he in trouble? Is he hurt? Or maybe it’s something with me—Crap, what if he finally realized that I’m a shitty friend and a boring person in general?_

To make matters worse, Kokichi had no viable method of checking up on Saihara. He couldn’t message Harukawa because he was a _fucking idiot_ who’d never gotten around to getting her number, and _geez,_ how much more careless could he have been? And now Saihara was somewhere far away, probably in trouble, and Kokichi couldn’t do _anything—_

A sudden arm thrown around his shoulders and a body pressed against his own jolted him out of his downwards spiral. 

_What—?!_

Kokichi jerked violently out of the grasp of his impromptu attacker, coming face to face with an unfamiliar boy sporting an absurdly huge hat that covered his spiky white hair. _Oh_ **_great,_ ** _it’s another weirdo. I hate this school._

“What the fuck?!” Kokichi snapped as he stuffed his phone into his pocket. He backed away from the boy, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Hey,” the boy complained _,_ looking slightly affronted, “what was that for?”

“Isn’t that what I should be asking _you?”_ _This is a worryingly weird morning... First radio silence from Saihara, and now_ ** _this_** _?_

The other boy shrugged. “Eh, schematics.” He pushed up the brim of his still-egregiously-enormous hat and, despite Kokichi’s obvious aversion, threw his arm around his shoulders again. “Anyways, you’re my new friend. I’ve decided.”

Kokichi stared at him. “What.” 

“Yeah, congratulations!” The boy checked his nails lazily, exuding an air of utmost nonchalance while attached to the side of a complete stranger that he had just accosted. 

“No—That wasn’t a happy ‘what.’” Kokichi wrenched himself away from the offending arm for the second time. _What’s the deal with this wack-job?_ “It was more of a ‘who-the-hell-are-you-and-get-the-hell-away-from-me’ kind of ‘what.’” 

“Oh, man,” the boy said, face screwing up in mild offense. “Jeez, you’re a stubborn one, huh? I probably should’ve picked some other NPC.”

_This guy is getting freakier by the second. “Picked?_ For _what?_ And did you seriously just unironically use a video game term? Who even does that? Basement-dwelling nerds? What kind of nerd are you—”

“Buuut, I’m not the type to give up!” The boy boasted proudly. “When I start a challenge, I always succeed! You’re not shaking me off _that_ easily!”

“I fucking _wish,”_ Kokichi muttered. 

“Anyways, for your first act as my friend—”

“I’m not your friend! I’ve never met you before in my life!”

“—FOR YOUR FIRST ACT AS MY FRIEND—” The guy was now yelling. Brilliant. “—how about you show me around this dump?” He eyed the suspiciously stained walls and disgustingly dirty floors that were long overdue for a deep clean. His gaze then shifted to a pair of students currently in the process of filling a locker with whipped cream. “Or, uh, whatever qualifies as a school. Whoops. I hope you’re not the patriotic type.”

Kokichi non-surreptitiously edged away from the boy as he prattled on. If he stuck around this lunatic for any longer, he was going to be late for class—a prospect his teachers had labeled as a cardinal sin and would duly punish for. 

“H-Hey! Wait up!” To his annoyance, the boy followed after Kokichi, still loudly oversharing his internal monologue to absolutely nobody in particular, since Kokichi obviously wasn’t listening. “Wow, you walk pretty fast, even with a crowd like this. Are all public schools like this? Like a dumpster just filled to the brim with uniform-wearing maggots?” At this, a few “maggots” shot the boy looks of pure animosity. He didn’t seem to notice. “I’m actually sorta surprised you guys wear uniforms, considering the state of your school ‘n all. I’ve never stepped foot in these kinda places.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Kokichi couldn’t help but shoot back. _Get lost get lost get lost get lost—_

His new tag-along did not get lost. Instead, he stuck close to Kokichi like an inconvenient tumor. “Y’know, when my grandpa said that I had to attend a public school, I _rioted._ But that guy’s a major hardass—He didn’t even flinch at all the property damage I caused! Jeez, isn’t that wild? He even had the gall to give me a terrible, _terrible_ quest. That asshole!” 

Kokichi mutinously considered various ways of removing his new annoyance. Logically, he knew that violence was most definitely not permitted within school grounds, but his teachers would surely let it slide if they knew how absurdly pesky this guy was...

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the boy let out a high-pitched shriek and threw himself behind Kokichi. _“Eek—!_ W-What is that?!”

“What is _what—_ Hey, get your filthy hands off of me!” Kokichi bit out, simultaneously trying to look for what had sparked this sudden commotion while also attempting to detach the pest from his back. Neither were working out particularly well.

“T-That— _thing!”_ The blight squeaked out unhelpfully, cowering behind his human shield. “It’s—It’s _monstrous!_ It’s gonna kill us all!” Like a disturbed snail, he shrank in on himself and further wrinkled the back of Kokichi’s uniform, which— _fantastic,_ he was going to have to iron those out considering how tightly his jacket was being gripped. The abrupt personality change was throwing him for a loop, though.

“Seriously,” Kokichi said, annoyance steadily building up, “just calling it a ‘thing’ isn’t very helpful. And can you stop touching me? When was the last time you even washed your ha—”

_“Ohmygoditjustmoved!”_ His newly acquired back-tumor pointed a quivering finger at the side of a locker. 

Looking at where the nuisance was pointing at revealed the location of—”Really? A spider? A spider is what’s making you freak out?”

The boy nodded pathetically, eyes blown wide with fear and shoulders hunched up to his ears. “W-Why’s it all... freaky-looking? Is it venomous? Does it bite?”

_Just how freaking sheltered is this guy?_

“The worst a spider’ll do is _exist,”_ Kokichi deadpanned, and—only because the guy looked too pathetic to stomach, _no other reason_ —steered him away from the offending arachnid and towards his classroom. 

_Dammit. Why am I such a softie._

He immediately regretted leaving the spider behind once the boy reverted back to his previously chatty attitude in a flash. 

“Hey, does this place have any labs?” The boy asked casually, following Kokichi like a lost duckling—that is, if ducklings were a lot less cute and a lot more of a blight on this planet. “Like, maybe even a robotics club? I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t—Oh, what’s this?” 

“This,” Kokichi said long-sufferingly, standing before a dull-looking door, “is my classroom. Goodbye.” He attempted to dart into the room, but his plans were unfortunately foiled by his arm getting grabbed. As he was dragged away, he watched despondently as the door to his classroom shrunk smaller and smaller, fading into the distance. _This morning just keeps getting worse and worse._

The boy finally relinquished his hold of Kokichi upon reaching the stairwell. “Oh, cool, you guys actually have stairs! Color me surprised.”

“Wh—Why would we _not_ have stairs? Did you not see the entrance steps? And—Why the hell did you drag me here?”

“Okay, no offense but this school’s majorly lacking in the safety department. And the architectural department. And the financial department.” The boy paused for a moment, scratching his chin in deep thought. “Okay, basically every department.”

_What in the world is this idiot prattling about._

“Look, if you have concerns about the school’s... general existence, how about you take it up with the office? Instead of, say, some random student who has jackshit to do with this?” Kokichi sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes, germs be damned. _What a tiring morning. It’s only 8 a.m. and I already want to commit a felony._ “I _really_ need to get to class—”

Unfortunately, the boy was back to treating Kokichi like a glorified soundboard—something to be talked at and ignored. “There was that _monster_ back there on the locker, and the overall state of the school sucks pretty hard—”

“I couldn’t care less.”

“—so I think my surprise in you guys having stairs is sorta justified!”

It was at that moment that the bell rang, signaling the start of class and the fact that Kokichi was now irreparably, irredeemably _late._

“Oh my fucking god,” he snarled, fingers twitching murderously as he turned on the nuisance in front of him. “Can’t you take a hint? Is this—Do you just have a hobby of being as obnoxious as possible? Do you know how _goddamn annoying_ you are? Hey!” He snapped his fingers in front of the boy’s distracted face. “Are you even listening?”

“What?” The pest snapped out of his distracted stupor. “Sorry, I don’t listen to idle dialogue. Hm, do you think these stairs are even structurally sound? They’ll probably collapse in, like, a year or two—”

“Do you think I give a single shit about some inane stairs—“

“Look, they already have cracks! Talk about substandard infrastructure, am I right?”

“What kind of psycho pulls this sort of stunt? Seriously, what is _wrong_ with you—“

“Judging by its weak foundation and already present cracks, I’d say these stairs aren’t gonna hold up for too long. Ah, how lame.”

It was inherently obvious that this was going absolutely nowhere. They were on two entirely separate wavelengths, talking _at_ each other rather than _with,_ which meant a change in tactics was required. 

“Why did you drag me here,” Kokichi cut straight to the point, voice deadpan as he leaned against the wall. He was already late; he might as well wring out some information from this _aggravation_ before he submitted to his teacher-administered doom. 

“Huh? Oh yeah, y’see—Me ‘n classes sorta don’t mix. If we’re gonna be friends—”

Was he seriously still sticking to this shtick? “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not your friend! I don’t even know your name!”

“That’s not important. Friends don’t need to know each other’s names!” The boy’s expression turned thoughtful. “At least, I think that’s how it works.”

“No... I’m pretty sure that’s... that’s not it.”

His face twisted into a petulant scowl. “Well, what do _you_ know?” 

When Kokichi opened his mouth to inform him how incredibly well-versed he was with the magic of _friendship,_ the boy went back to yelling over him like an honest-to-god hooligan. “Nah! Don’t—Don’t bother answering that!” He flushed angrily, pulling the brim of his hat over his eye. “Whatever. Who needs _names?_ I can just _give_ you one!”

“Please don’t.” Kokichi deadpanned.

“Uhm, what’s a good name for you...” The boy stared at his fist in deep contemplation as if his single, specific hand held the primordial answer to the secret of life.

Kokichi groaned loudly. “I already have a perfectly usable name! Y’know, the one I got at birth? Yeah, that’s how people are named. They’re named by their _parents,_ not by some random self-centered strangers with shitty haircuts. Did you know that?”

The guy squinted at him. “How about ‘Smartass’?” 

“That’s a _terrible_ —”

“Nah, I think ‘Angry Grape’ fits better! Whaddya think?”

“That’s even _worse_ ,” Kokichi despaired. 

“Maybe _‘Gloomy_ Grape’,” the boy tried. 

“Do you want a concussion that badly?”

“Jeez, cut me some slack here!” He complained loudly, throwing his hands behind his head. “I’ve only ever named machines! Static Slasher and Killer Kobra never complained as much as you!”

_Static Slasher? Killer Kobra? Oh my god,_ _pfft—_ “Wow, your crappy names don’t just stop at humans, huh?” Kokichi smirked, a tad bit too vindictively. “Full offense—those are so _lame_.”

The boy gasped, as if Kokichi had just committed a federal offense. “T-They are _not_ lame!”

“Are too.”

“Are not!”

“Are too.”

“ _Are_ **_not!_** ”

“Are not.”

“Are to—Wha—Hey!”

Kokichi smiled, feeling impossibly smug. “Ah. So you’ve finally seen the light.”

“N-No! That’s not it!” The previous angry blush returned at full force. “I’ll have you know—Those are great names! Totally awesome! E-Even my grandpa said so!”

Kokichi gazed at him pityingly. “You do know that he probably said that as an act of charity, right?”

“You’re being a terrible friend right now!” The boy bristled, outraged, heavily resembling an angry albino hedgehog. 

“Yeah, well, you’re being a terrible person in general.” _Okay, maybe that was a little too mean. He did make me late for class—I’ve never been late before. My teachers and the Idiots are going to be_ **_furious._ **

A pause.

_On second thought, he totally deserved that._

It was honestly pretty astounding just how ridiculously poofy a person’s hair could get when they were enraged. The boy’s hair looked like it had just been vigorously attacked by a balloon and was now stocked full with static. 

“M-My names are perfect!” He insisted, face flushed an outraged red. He was practically shaking out of indignation, reminiscent of a particularly loud and spastic chihuahua with a little too much rage to be contained in its tiny body. “I’d like to see _you_ do better!”

“Okay, umm...” Kokichi pretended to deliberate the situation with faux deepness. “How about ‘Spiky Shit’?” He then watched Spiky Shit’s face instantly contort into a massive grimace. 

“That sucks harder than ‘Smartass’!” He seethed. 

In response, Kokichi simply shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Spiky Shit did not take that very well—that is to say, he refused to take it at _all._ He fumed. He bristled. He sulked. He kicked the stairs. He demanded for a re-do. He kicked the stairs again when said re-do was denied. Meanwhile, Kokichi passively watched an actual highschooler throw a colossal temper tantrum like an oversized five-year-old as he went ham on an inanimate object. 

To be honest, it was pretty entertaining. 

“Whoa, are you actually making damage on this thing?” There was an unexpected dent in the stone, surrounded by a litany of equally unexpected cracks. 

Spiky Shit paused mid-kick. “‘Course I am! Property damage is but one of my many, _many_ talents.”

“...Really.”

“My grandpa says I’m a force to be reckoned with and the local police call me a public menace,” he boasted, as if this was something to be proud of. 

Kokichi had nothing to say to that.

He checked the time on his phone as Spiky Shit cheerfully reverted to his meltdown in the background. _About five minutes late. Urk._

He couldn’t keep stalling. He _had_ to get back to class. Being late meant getting punished; getting punished meant retribution from the Idiots; retribution led to complaints to the foster system and Kokichi getting booted to yet another shithole thinly disguised as civilization. This, unfortunately, was a pattern he was all too familiar with. 

_The real issue is how I’ll avoid getting flack for something that’s not even my fault. Would my teacher accept the excuse “I was kidnapped and verbally assaulted by a delusional man-child with a terrible haircut?”_

_...Nah._

Although, mentally bad-mouthing Spiky Shit did spark an idea within Kokichi. 

“Hey, are you done with your temper tantrum?”

_“Temper tantrum?!_ I was _not—”_

“Cool, now shut up and come with me.”

“Huh—? H-Hey!”

•••

“...so you see, the shock of public school distressed the poor guy so much that he descended into hysterics.” Kokichi artfully ignored the indignant glare seering into the side of his head. “Oh, and also made me miss homeroom. Because I was helping him. Like a good student.”

Spiky Shit opened his mouth. His foot was promptly and viciously stomped on. Spiky Shit closed his mouth.

“Hmm,” frowned Kokichi’s biology teacher, a man whose reputation of being an uptight hardass preceded him. He loomed over them like an oppressive shadowy mass with a coffee-stained shirt and shiny bald spot. “Is that so.”

It was not a question, but a bland statement. 

Kokichi melted into a hazy, zen-like calm, one only unlockable when his perpetual panicking and fight-or-flight response had reached their apex. “Oh, absolutely! In fact, I would suggest you ask the guy himself, but, hm, it seems—" He heel of his sneakers dug into a conveniently placed foot. “—he’s gone mute.” 

Spiky Shit squeaked. Kokichi artfully ignored that, too.

“It’s the stress, y’know,” he lied, like a liar. 

“Hmm,” went his teacher, _again._ Kokichi privately wondered if the man had been replaced by a broken record, or maybe even an alien. Only, _no,_ he realized, with no small measure of disappointment, that would be too good to be true. Practically _anything_ would be a step-up from his biology teacher. 

Poker face firmly affixed, Kokichi watched apprehensively as the maybe-malfunctioning-alien floated to his desk and sifted through some papers, silent all the while. Beneath his shoe, Spiky Shit shifted uncomfortably—then immediately froze when the foot-torture returned with a vengeance. In the background, a student coughed—a cut-off, strangled thing, almost as if the teacher’s mere presence had terrified the cough into submission.

This was, quite possibly, one of the most awkward moments of Kokichi’s life. History was being made, and he wanted nothing to do with it. 

After what seemed like hours but were only a few agonizing seconds, his teacher floated back over, a clipboard in his hand. “I’ve been told we’re only receiving one transfer student. Would your name happen to be Iidabashi Ko—”

“Ah!” Spiky Shit jolted out of his frozen stupor. “K-Kiibo! It’s Iidabashi _Kiibo_ _!_ ” 

The teacher eyed him darkly, like he was a particularly nasty piece of gum stuck on the sidewalk. “Don’t ever interrupt me again.”

“S-Sorry!”

“Hmph. Alright then,” he said, marking something down on his clipboard, “Iidabashi _Kiibo,_ you say?”

When it became apparent that an answer was expected, Spik—Iidabashi squeaked out a high-pitched, “Y-Yes! Sir!” If it weren’t for Kokichi grabbing his arm, the poor fool would’ve saluted. 

The teacher muttered, gravely, “I’ll have to notify the office regarding this change,” almost like it was a death sentence. However, 90% of his words sounded like he was damning an unfortunate soul to life in prison, so that probably didn’t mean anything. 

Iidabashi— _And_ _why did that sound so familiar? Maybe he'd heard it on the radio or TV?_ —was trembling from badly concealed terror. He’d gone from an annoying, yappy dog to a clueless, scared-shitless puppy. It was a pitiful enough sight to incite sympathy in Kokichi, so, as an act of mercy, he lifted his foot and discreetly stepped to the side. He still had the sense to shoot Iidabashi a glare that translated to something along the lines of “Say anything incriminating and I’ll _castrate_ you.”

“It seems you were lucky, Iidabashi-kun,” said the teacher, swiveling his somber gaze onto Iidabashi, whose trembling increased tenfold. “You’ve somehow arrived at the classroom you were assigned to.”

_Oh, you have_ **_got_ ** _to be kidding me._

“Wait, does that mean I’ll have _you_ as my teacher? Because that’d be—”

“—great!” Kokichi slapped a hand over Idabashi’s mouth before the idiot could talk himself into an early death. “What a... stroke of luck! I bet Iidabashi’s _real_ happy to have someone as qualified as _you_ as his teacher!” 

The teacher fell into a bewildered stupor. 

“Hey, sensei,” Kokichi continued, deliberately talking over Iidabashi’s muffled noise of protest, “want me to help this guy? Show him around? Keep him from offending people he _really shouldn’t be provoking?_ ” 

_What the hell am I saying?_ He depspaired internally, _No, seriously, what am I doing? Am I an idiot? Looks like it. God, please just nuke me, or something. Release me from my suffering._

“That... would be very... helpful, Oma-kun,” the teacher said slowly, after a long period of silence. He cleared his throat. “Hm, yes, considering your exemplary record, you’d be a suitable guide. Iidabashi-kun will be arranged to sit next to you. Thank you for volunteering your assistance.”

Kokichi privately wondered who he’d killed in his past life for _this_ to happen to him. _This_ being the series of regrettable choices that was apparently his life. On the bright side, his tardiness had been excused. On the downside, it seemed he'd still received his due punishment, only it manifested in the form of a boy with a horrendous haircut.

In a daze, he stumbled to his desk, zombie-like, and it wasn’t until he’d sat down that he realized his hand was still glued to Iidabashi’s face. 

“Mrrph,” Iidabashi said eloquently. 

“Oh, sor— _Eugh!_ Are you serious?” Kokichi ripped his now soggy hand away, shaking it in disgust. He frantically dove into his backpack for hand sanitizer. “Did you just _lick_ me? What are you, a dog?”

“Why’s your hand so sweaty? It was like having a wet rag stuck on my face,” Iidabashi complained, ignoring his question as he settled into the desk next to Kokichi’s, because apparently Kokichi was hated by the gods and cursed to be forever unlucky, or something horrible like that. 

“It’s wet because you _licked_ me, you barbarian,” he scowled while lathering on a gratuitous amount of hand sanitizer and scrubbing with a single-minded intensity. Distantly, he could hear the teacher instructing students to take out their biology textbooks.

“No,” Iidabashi said, “I’m pretty sure it was sweaty before I licked it.”

“Oh, for the love of g—”

“Ah,” came the dull, monotone voice of his nightmares, “it seems you’ve picked up another pet, Fated One.” 

“...Hi, Chabashira-san,” Kokichi said, defeated. “Please don’t call people pets. That tends to give others the wrong impression.” 

“This pet seems especially wily to tame,” Chabashira continued, as if she hadn’t heard anything. She was staring ahead, vacantly, in typical creepy Chabashira-fashion. “The stars wish you much luck on your quest to total ownership.”

“Why are you like this.”

“What?” Iidabashi asked, head swiveling between the two, his expression the pinnacle of confusion. “What pet? What stars? Are you guys talking about astrology?”

Before Chabashira could open her mouth and say something even more incriminating, Kokichi hurried on, “Ignore her, she—She likes roleplaying. In fact, she’s even more delusional than you.”

As expected, he took the bait. “I’m not delusional! _You’re_ delusional!” 

“I literally witnessed you go nuclear on a set of innocent stairs.”

“W-Well... You named me Spiky Shit!”

Kokichi raised an eyebrow. “Your point is?”

Iidabashi growled in outrage, further cementing Kokichi’s theory that he was, indeed, a rabid dog poorly disguised as a human. 

“I see the taming process is going smoothly,” Chabashira commented, inappropriate as always. 

“Seriously, what pet are you guys talking about?”

“Hey,” Kokichi said, not bothering to specify who he was talking to, “do me a favor and blink out of existence.” 

Iidabashi took offense anyways, bristling in an uncanny imitation of a hedgehog. “I’ll blink _you_ out of ex—”

“You three,” snapped the teacher, who had suddenly materialized in front of them, and oh yeah, _they were currently in class and making a scene,_ “quiet _now,_ or I’ll send you all to the principal’s office. I didn’t place you together to disrupt my classroom.” Impossibly tall and menacingly dark, he stared them down with an insidious glare, daring them to speak. 

The three of them wisely shut up. 

While the teacher resumed prowling around the classroom, preying on unsuspecting students and forcing them to answer questions, Kokichi glumly stared at his biology textbook. This morning had been positively _disastrous,_ and all he wanted was for it to be _over._ Maybe then, he’d be able to track down Saihara and interrogate him. _Thoroughly._ Or was that too clingy? Too aggressive? He didn’t want to scare him off, of course, but he also wanted to pound the importance of communication into his head. Metaphorically. _Hm, yeah,_ now that he thought about it, _that sounds_ **_incredibly_ ** _clingy._

He couldn’t win.

“Yo, Oma,” Iidabashi said, scratching his head sheepishly, “can we share your textbook? I didn’t bother picking up any of mine.”

•••

“Why.”

The boy in front of him, who had been enthusiastically bouncing from foot to foot, paused and wrinkled his nose. “What d'ya mean, _why?_ We’re friends, and friends eat lunch together! That’s one of the most fundamental rules of the universe!”

“We’re not friends,” Kokichi automatically rebutted. 

“Yes we are!”

“No, we’re not.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“No.”

“Ye—I am _not_ falling for my own trick.” 

“A-ha!” Iidabashi crowed. “You said yes! I heard you! This is _revenge_!” 

“You—You’re hallucinating,” Kokichi replied weakly, pretending he hadn’t just fallen for such an insultingly basic trick. _Nope, there’s no way I’m as gullible as Iidabashi,_ he told himself, unconvincingly. _There’s no way I have the IQ of a puny chihuahua._

“Where do you wanna eat lunch?” 

“I’m not eating lunch with you.”

Iidabashi was apparently one of those people who were selectively deaf. “I’m thinkin’ maybe those benches in the courtyard? Oh, but not the one by the fountain—I kicked that one this morning and it fell apart.”

“How many times do I have to—” Kokichi cut off abruptly, only just now registering what the other boy had said. 

“I wanted to test my power,” Iidabashi elaborated, but served to further confuse the living hell out of Kokichi. _What in the world...?_ “Turns out, either the school benches are made of play-doh, or I’m just strong as shit.”

“I... I’m going to ignore that,” Kokichi said slowly, and was about to shake him off when he was interrupted.

“Dude, I might be the strongest human being on the planet!” 

“...I’m ignoring that, too.”

“I bet if I kicked this wall, I could demolish it,” Iidabashi mused, eyeing the wall by his desk. _Oh my god—_ The little fool looked like he was actually _considering_ it. 

Suddenly, Kokichi could very vividly see the sequence of events play out before his eyes in perfect 1080p HD resolution: Iidabashi would kick the wall, manage to put a hole in it out of pure dumbassery, get in trouble with the teacher, and, in turn, Kokichi would get dragged down just by association. 

Kokichi did not want that to happen. His basic survival instincts and common sense told him that he _really_ did not want that to happen. 

There was only one thing he could do. 

“Alright, alright,” he sighed, nabbing Iidabashi by the collar right as he was gearing up to commit a tremendously idiotic atrocity by the power of his foot. “Let’s eat lunch—” A pause, as Kokichi’s face visibly contorted from the sheer effort it was taking to say the next word. “— _together._ ”

Iidabashi lit up like a solar flare. “I knew you’d come to your senses!”

He received a scowl in response. “Oi, don’t push your luck.”

They edged past Chabashira’s desk, where said girl was sitting statue-like, still staring straight ahead. Kokichi shuddered. _I’m never going to get over how mind-bendingly_ **_creepy_ ** _she is._

“So, where’re we going?” Iidabashi asked, bounding out of the classroom after Kokichi. 

“Library.” Proceeding to ignore his tag-along’s immediate protests, he fished out his phone and, to his disappointment, was greeted with a blank lock screen. _Saihara’s still MIA, huh..._

Opening the message app showed him that his texts were unread. His head was starting to pound a dull, aching pain. _Ah, this type of anxiety... really, really sucks._

Sudden radio-silence? Absolutely no response? None at all? That could only mean one thing—

“Whoa, why do you look so depressed all of a sudden?” Iidabashi’s curious face rudely invaded Kokichi’s personal space. “I mean, you were already pretty dead-looking, but now you look like—”

“My friend is _dead,_ ” Kokichi announced. 

“W- _What?!_ ”

“I think he’s been _murdered._ ” Oh, look, he was starting to tear up in the middle of the hallway. _Ah. How embarrassing._

“H-Hey, sorry about your, uh, dead friend—” Oh, great. More tears. “—and maybe I shouldn’t have just said that part—Um, can you stop crying? It’s really distracting.” Iidabashi floundered like a fish out of water, only that fish was starting to die from asphyxiation. “Shoot—um, uh? What the hell’re you supposed to do with a crying person?! Do, do you want a glow stick, or something?”

“I’m not crying,” Kokichi said, very calmly, as tears clearly streamed down his face. Some distant part of him lamented that he was never going to live this down. 

“You know, you lie a lot,” Iidabashi blurted out, “Is that, like, a talent of yours? You're pretty good at it, too! Hey, let’s focus on your skillset! A-And not on the crying, yeah?”

“Oh my god, I was a lying _hypocrite_ to Saihara.” The revelation was like a bullet to the chest—that is, if said bullet was actually a warehouse-sized nuclear warhead. 

“Huh? H-Hypocrite? Wh—”

“I told him I hated liars even though I’m the biggest liar I know! What kind of sick fuck _does_ that? Especially to _Saihara?_ ” He was starting to get a little hysterical. _Just a bit._

“Uh,” Iidabashi sputtered, eyes darting around frantically. “Uh—? Oh man, I am _so_ not equipped for this—H-Hey, look! We’ve arrived at the library! You love this place, right? Please tell me the library will magically stop your crying!”

As a matter of fact, the library induced the exact opposite effect. “This is where I text Saihara—but now he’s not responding because he’s _dead!_ ” Kokichi’s back slid down the wall of the hallway until he hit the ground, staring despondently down at his phone. _Can I stop crying now? It’s getting sort of annoying. And embarrassing. At least the library entrance is as desolate as always. Still. What a pain._

“Wait.” Something must have dawned on the other boy. “Wait, hold on a sec.” 

“Time is meaningless now that Saihara’s dead,” Kokichi declared, melodramatically. 

“Man, no offense, but shut up for a bit. I’m—I’m thinking.”

“Ah. Take your time. First times are especially hard.” 

“Okay, clearly you’re not _that_ depressed if you have the energy to insult me.”

“I’m so distraught I no longer have a text-to-speech filter.” He gazed unseeingly into his hands. _This sucks._

“Yeah, I agree. This does suck,” Iidabashi nodded, because apparently Kokichi’s traitorous mouth had said that out loud. He rummaged around in his pant pocket. “H-Here, take this glow stick. Maybe it’ll cheer you up? And also shut you up, because it’s really hard to think with you monologuing.” 

Instead of staring at his hands, Kokichi was now staring at a dull-looking glow stick. The glow stick shone a faint, sickly green. _What is this even supposed to accomplish._

“I just told you, it’s supposed to shut you up. Evidently, it’s not working so well. Anyways—So. How exactly did you find out your friend was, er, murdered? Did you see the news or get a message—”

A heavy sigh. “Not at all. In fact, I didn’t get _any_ message.”

“Then... how...?”

“What don’t you understand?” Kokichi fiddled with the frankly terrible glow stick. “No messages, no response—therefore, he’s dead. And maybe murdered.” 

“I... I think _you’re_ the one not understanding something,” Iidabashi muttered, but there was a look of triumph on his face. “So, lemme get this straight—Your friend didn’t message you for—How long, again?”

“This morning.”

“This mor—Seriously? You’re losing your shit because this Saihara guy didn’t message you for a whole morning?” 

Kokichi looked to the heavens for salvation. “Devastating, isn’t it.”

“No—Okay, look, um,” Iidabashi took his hat off, scrunching it in deep thought, “how do I say this... I’m not too familiar with this whole friendship thing, but I don’t think a few missed messages instantly correlate to _murder._ ”

“Ah. Then what do you propose?” _This glow stick is seriously lame._

“Hey man, don’t diss the stick—Um,” he jammed his hat back on, which was now rather wrinkled, “maybe your friend... forgot to charge his phone? So it’s dead! T-The phone, not your friend, I mean. This is a _lot_ more reasonable than instantly jumping to d-death, right?” 

Kokichi furrowed his brows. The tears stopped. _Wait..._

“Like, what are the odds of forgetting to charge your phone compared to, say, murder?”

What Iidabashi was saying... actually made _sense_. Huh. Kokichi had no idea the other boy could _do_ that. 

“Right? I really hope you heard all of that because it’s gonna be a real pain to repeat everything—”

“Ugh, I’m such an _idiot,_ ” Kokichi groaned, slapping the hand holding the glow stick to his head. “Why am I like this. _Why._ ” 

Jumping to conclusions? Getting hysterical? Those were all very _Harukawa_ things to do. Wasn’t Kokichi supposed to be the levelheaded, logical one? The mediator? The one that reigned in Saihara and Harukawa when they got too delirious and out of control? What was he supposed to _be_ if he couldn’t even be _rational?_

“Ughhh.” He smacked the glow stick to his head again. 

Iidabashi crouched down and hesitantly held up his hands like he was trying to placate a particularly fussy cat. “H-Hey, is this, like, a new stage of grief? Violence?” 

Ignoring him, Kokichi ground his palm, and subsequently the glow stick, into his forehead, all the while mumbling, “What the hell? What’s wrong with me today? Maybe I need more sleep? Such an _idiot..._ ” 

“Not gonna lie, this wasn’t the intended use of the glow stick but... Is this... a method of coping? If so... keep at it, champ!” 

“Don’t ever call me champ again.”

“Got it, champ!”

“Eugh.” He lifted his head up just to shoot the other boy a scowl. “You’re infuriating.”

“And you’re weird as hell, but you don’t see me complaining.”

Kokichi rolled his eyes, pocketing the glow stick now that it was no longer being weaponized against himself. “You’re literally complaining right now.”

“Oh, whatever,” Iidabashi scoffed, then slowly sat down next to Kokichi, carefully, as if any sudden movement would set him off—which, yeah, considering the prior emotional whiplash, was pretty understandable. “Sooo... You’re normal now, right?”

“Is anybody _ever_ normal?”

The other boy made a disgusted face. “Hey now, don’t get existential on me! Philosophy’s not my forte.” His face brightened. “Science and math and robotics engineering are my jam! Just not _philosophy._ Or literature.”

“You’re lucky you came to this school then,” Kokichi said, as he shakily unwrapped his bento and promptly ignored Iidabashi’s longing looks. “We don’t have a philosophy class—we actually don’t have a _lot_ of classes, considering the lack of funding and all—but Saihara’s school does.”

“Saihara, huh...”

“Yeah!” A small smile bloomed on his face. “He’s always complaining about his philosophy teacher—all of his teachers, actually—and talking about using psychological warfare on them.”

“W-What.”

“He’s cute like that,” Kokichi sighed, this time a happy, content one, while he reminisced how excited Saihara had been, his inky hair framing his dancing amber eyes as he gushed about his villainous plans. Or, even when they weren’t face-to-face—the sheer scope of exclamation points he’d bomboard Kokichi with was endearing enough. 

“Psy...chological... warfare... is cute...” Iidabashi looked like his brain was lagging in real time.

“Oh, no—the evil scheming isn’t all that cute.” He tapped a finger on his leg, thoughtful. “It’s his, ah, passion! He’s a very passionate person, y’know.”

Iidabashi seemed to be having an immensely difficult time computing this. “Okay... Got it. It seems that we’re into very, _very_ different types of people.” 

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. Can I have one of your egg rolls?” Clasping his hands to his chin, Iidabashi looked pleadingly at Kokichi. “They look delicious! And I’m starving! On the verge of death, even! A-Actually, maybe I shouldn’t mention d-death around you...”

Kokichi narrowed his eyes and hunched protectively over his bento. “Where’s _your_ lunch?”

“Don’t have one,” was the immediate reply.

“It wouldn’t happen to be in that one pocket that’s bulging with something, would it?”

Iidabashi gasped and smacked the aforementioned pocket, like he had only just remembered it existed. “No, definitely not! That—That’s my hamster.”

Kokichi stared. “You just smacked your hamster.”

“It’s a... very... resilient hamster.” He laughed weakly. “Real sturdy!”

“I don’t think any hamster in the world can survive such a violent hit like that.”

“Then you’ve never met my hamster!”

“Pets aren’t even allowed in school.”

“What can I say? I’m a rulebreaker!” 

They proceeded to break into a staring contest, with Kokichi dubiously squinting at Iidabashi, while Iidabashi squatted on his heels and nearly fell backwards. In the end, Kokichi lost—only because his eyes were still irritated from his earlier bout of mental instability. 

“Alright, fine,” he conceded with a sigh of defeat, pushing his bento towards the other boy, “I have more than enough food, anyways.”

“You’re the best!” Iidabashi gushed through a mouth full of egg, because he was obviously a miscreant with no manners. “Did your mom make these? ‘Cause they’re _so_ freaking good!”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” frowned Kokichi, before his gaze darkened. “And, no, my... _mom_ didn’t make these. I did.”

His moodiness went unnoticed. “Seriously? That’s another skill to your character! You’re getting a little too OP, here.”

_Seriously, what kind of grade-A nerd talks like that?_

And because it was a valid concern, Kokichi voiced this thought aloud. 

Iidabashi gave him a withering look. It probably would have looked more intimidating if his cheeks weren’t stuffed like a chipmunk. “I-I’m not a nerd! I’m way too cool to be a nerd!”

“Now _that’s_ a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”

“S-Shut it,” he grumbled, “I’m starting to regret cheering you up... nihilistic Oma was way less annoying.”

“Ah, Ouma, not Oma.”

“What?”

As if he was talking to an exceptionally dim toddler, Kokichi said, very slowly, “My name. It’s Ouma, not Oma.”

“What the hell? Is there even a difference?”

He huffed. “Nevermind. I don’t know why I expected _you_ of all people to get it.”

“H-Hey, I’m not liking what you’re implying here... O-Ouma? Is that it?” 

_No suffix? Odd._ “Oh, wow, I’m legitimately impressed,” Kokichi said earnestly, his eyes wide, “I had no idea you were capable of _learning._ ”

“Seriously, where did you get this impression of me? What did I even _do?_ ” 

“The moment you saw me, you assaulted, stalked, and then kidnapped me,” Kokichi said, point-blank. 

Iidabashi balked. “Wh—What?! N-No way—! That's not how it went at all!”

“Yes way,” he replied patiently.

The other boy laughed nervously. “Hey, let’s—let’s talk about something else.” He visibly wracked his brain for a moment, and then his eyes lit up. “So! About Saihara.”

“Hm?” Kokichi intoned around a mouthful of pickled plum.

His companion cut straight to the chase. “You went totally nut-bonkers over him.”

“Oh,” he mumbled, flustered, “can you forget that ever happened? I think the stress got to me and... depleted me of my brain cells.”

“The stress...”

“Agh—It was really embarrassing, wasn’t it?”

“Uh. Sort of,” Iidabashi muttered, then barreled on, “Do you act like that for all of your friends? Because that’d be pretty troublesome to deal with.”

“Ah. You don’t have to worry. He’s the only person that has made me... react like that.”

“That’s weird. But—Victory!” Iidabashi suddenly shot to his feet and erupted into a boisterous cheer, badly startling Kokichi.

“What the—Have you also gone bonkers, too?!”

He grinned down at Kokichi triumphantly. “Nah! Just celebrating over the fact that you’ve finally acknowledged me as your friend!”

Kokichi’s jaw dropped. “No... you... you’re hallucinating again...” 

“Nope!” Iidabashi crowed. “I asked if you acted like that with all your friends, and you told me no and not to worry—ergo, I’m now one of your friends!”

“ _No,_ ” gasped Kokichi, utterly aghast.

“Yes!” whooped Iidabashi, totally exhilarated.

_I can't believe this._

“Your logic is both faulty and stupid,” he argued desperately. 

_I've been **played**. _

“You’re not denying that I’m your friend though!”

“I literally _just_ said no.”

Evidently, the selective hearing had kicked in again. “Woohoo! Mission accomplished! I made a friend! A pretty weird and rude guy, but he’s still my friend!” 

“I think I’m going insane...” Kokichi muttered, gripping his head and staring at the ground. 

A dark-haired head popped out from the library entrance. “Hello, Fated One.”

“What the fu—Chabashira?!” 

_Everything just keeps descending into hell._

Gloomy-looking Chabashira glided towards him, like a great, big bat. “I have much news to distill upon you.”

Kokichi scooted away from the unwanted guest. “When did you get here?! I would have definitely seen you enter the library. Did you teleport or something?”

“My methods are mysterious and many,” was what she deemed to be an acceptable answer, which, in Kokichi’s opinion, definitely was _not._ “The keeper of the books—”

“You mean the librarian?”

“—has requested to use my body as their vessel—”

“Just say the librarian told you to do something.”

“—to inform you that your mortal sounds are exceeding the limits of their realm.”

_What._

It took Kokichi approximately 30 seconds to fully digest her cryptic message. It then took him another 20 to get over his exasperation. Sighing, he grabbed a still whooping and hollering Iidabashi by the collar and yanked him down. “Hey idiot, you’re pissing off the librarian with your screaming.”

“Why do you always abuse my uniform’s collar like this?” Iidabashi complained, because he apparently couldn’t get his priorities straight. “You’re gonna stretch it out if you keep doing this!”

“It’s what you deserve,” Kokichi replied snidely. 

“You’re such a terrible friend!” 

“Jokes on you—you’re the one who chose me.”

“Can I disown you? You’re more trouble than you’re worth, really.”

“Too late. This is payback for the kidnapping.”

“For the last time, I did _not—_ ”

“Ah,” Chabashira mused, “it seems you have successfully tamed your pet.” 

“Please shut up and leave immediately,” Kokichi said, as politely as he could.

“No, I don’t think I will,” she replied.

“You guys,” Iidabashi sighed, like they were a pair of unruly children incapable of higher cognitive thinking, “didn’t you know? Pets aren’t allowed at school!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello. as it turns out, i have a lot of problems. i suspect these problems to be ADHD-related—a prospect so discomforting that i have elected to ignore it. if anybody is willing to... politely... bother... me into updating this fic, it would be appreciated. immensely.
> 
> on another note—i’m bookmarking my favoritest fics!! of all time!!! im also writing mini summaries of why i love em so much, along with any tropes they fulfill :D please check out my bookmarks and critique my taste! then we can be friends! (im pretty sure bullying is a good basis for friendship, yeah?)
> 
> p.s. are these hella long author’s notes chill with you guys? or do they “ruin the immersion” or whatnot? because i can definitely shut up if needed!

**Author's Note:**

> everytime i think i can just let this fic fade into obscurity, somebody comments and i’m reminded that damnit!! people actually like this fic! time to get off your ass, lazy boy!!
> 
> scream things at me: instagram/twitter/tumblr —> plaschique


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